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Drowned baby migrant could be of Somali origin - Italian police

Italy

Italian police said on Wednesday that a dead baby pulled out of the sea last Friday by a German rescuer working for a humanitarian organisation, is probably of Somali origin.

The infant is estimated to be about 6 months old and his mother is believed to have died in a ship wreck.

The image of the baby sparked international outrage but a spokesperson of Sea-Watch said the decision to publish the image of the baby was to stress the graveness of the situation and highlight the effect of European foreign policy.

“The photograph corresponds with the corpse of a six-month-old boy, who survivors of the shipwreck said was from Somalia,” a high-ranking police official told Reuters on Wednesday.

So far, over 700 migrants are said to have drowned in three seperate shipwrecks in the Mediterranean in the past week.

Italian police on Tuesday said they had arrested 16 people suspected of human trafficking.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says nearly 320, 000 migrants arrived on Italian shores between 2014 and 2015 and an estimated 7000 died as they sought to reach Europe.

Reuters

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