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There is a lottery within the boats that take the migrant route across the Mediterranean.

Some get over without incident; some get into distress and are rescued; some sink without witness.

There are a lot of bodies at the bottom of that sea.

And now the list of deaths grows, and probably by a ghastly number after a fishing vessel capsized with what a charity feared was up to 750 on board.

There are already many questions about this incident. Why did the boat start to turn so sharply, apparently causing its own downfall? Who was turning down the offers of assistance, and why? Was the rescue operation adequate – and if not, why not?

But other things are more clear-cut – an overloaded boat, transporting people from a Libyan port to Europe in dreadful conditions.

I know about that, because I’ve seen it up close.

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A few weeks ago, cameraman Marc Hofer and I were on board the rescue ship Geo Barents, run by the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres.

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British man fears his relatives among the missing after migrant boat sinks off Greek coast

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Sky News has joined Italian coastguards and Medicin San Frontieres as 600 migrants were rescued from a sinking ship off the coast of Italy.

It patrols the Mediterranean, helping ships in distress and, on that sunny Saturday morning, a call for help is exactly what happened.

The Italian coastguard had been alerted to a ship, full of people, that needed assistance. When we got there, it was an extraordinary sight – a fishing boat that had been converted to carry as many people as possible.

It looked almost exactly the same as the one that has sunk off the southern Greek coast – a similar rich blue paintwork, apparently the same structure, with an upper deck and then a hugely crowded main deck.

On the boat we filmed, there was a lower area, called an underbelly, in which hundreds more people were crowded. On both boats, you can see the signs that it had previously been a fishing vessel, and you can also see the rust and wear of a long life.

My guess is that you could probably get about 40 people on to a boat like that before it started to feel too crowded.

At the end of a rescue mission we saw, which lasted several hours, more than 600 people had been transferred off the boat, and on to the Geo Barents.

When we spoke to some of those who were rescued, a story emerged that is now being echoed by survivors in Greece – of a boat that set off from the Libyan port of Tobruk, under the control of a captain.

Hunger, thirst and fear

On the Geo Barents, people told me that they had initially left the port with even more passengers on board but the vessel was so heinously overloaded that it could not be moved safely.

So, at gunpoint, around 150 people were then ordered off before the trip could start again.

They told a story of food and water running out; of people having to sit in the underbelly cramped together and of being ordered to stay in place so the boat would not sway from side to side. And of fearing that they would die on the journey.

We were also told that the captain left the ship one night, collected by a small boat that arrived alongside. After that, the passengers were left to their own devices, even though none of them knew how to control the boat.

Already, similar reports are emerging from the shipwreck – of a captain abandoning his ship, and those on board.

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‘This is my chance’: The aftermath of mass migrant rescue
On board the mission to rescue 600 people

Mediterranean boat disaster survivors say they were left to die – how the night’s tragedy unfolded

In both cases, the boats had actually been tracked by Frontex, the European Union’s border agency.

They scan the Mediterranean for vessels such as this and try to monitor their progress, handing on the information to the various nations that run search and rescue operations in the area.

But what is different is that the people we encountered were happy to be rescued. Many thought they were genuinely facing death and they willingly clambered off the boat and into the fast dinghies that took them to safety.

They wanted to reach Italy and, having been rescued by a boat in Italian waters, that was now going to happen.

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Dozens of people have died off the coast of Greece after a small boat carrying migrants capsized and sank.

The boat that sank seems also to have been determined to reach Italy, or perhaps Italian waters.

Maybe that’s why, as it meandered through the Greek zone, it repeatedly denied that it was in trouble – because it wanted to reach Italy’s jurisdiction before accepting any help.

But if the captain had left, then who was making that call? At times like this, there is a surfeit of questions and a paucity of answers.

Whatever – the sight of a dangerously overloaded vessel that won’t ask for help places the authorities in a difficult position.

Maritime law dictates that you must attend to a vessel that says it is in distress, or which is sinking or on fire.

But when a boat denies there’s a problem, then things become more complicated.

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‘A night-time rescue is the worst’

To an extent, all you can do is watch, hope for the best and prepare for the worst. The problem for the rescue teams is that the worst happened at 2am.

The rescue that we filmed happened on a sunny afternoon on a relatively flat sea. But operations at night, especially with so many people in the water, are notoriously difficult.

A person does not have to drift far before they are effectively out of sight. And it is incredible how the break of a wave can hide what’s behind it.

“A night-time rescue is the worst,” one of the crew told me, shaking his head.

This is really a tale of two boats: that look the same, were just as packed as each other and set off from the same place.

On both of them, there were points where the people on board thought they were going to die.

On one of them, everyone survived. On the other, they didn’t. Migration across the Mediterranean really can be a brutal throw of the dice.

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22 killed after suicide bomber opens fire at church in Syria – and then detonates explosive vest

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22 killed after suicide bomber opens fire at church in Syria - and then detonates explosive vest

At least 22 people have been killed after a suicide bomber opened fire at a church in Syria – and then detonated an explosive vest.

This is the first such incident since Bashar al Assad was toppled in December, and officials claim the attacker was a member of Islamic State.

It happened at a Greek Orthodox church in Damascus, with estimates suggesting that 350 worshippers were praying there at the time.

Pic: White Helmets via Reuters
Image:
Pic: White Helmets via Reuters

Witnesses said the perpetrator had his face covered when he began shooting – and blew himself up as crowds attempted to remove him from the building.

A security source told Reuters that two men were involved in the attack, with a priest saying he saw a second gunman at the entrance.

Officials say 63 people were injured, and children were among the casualties.

Syria’s information minister, Hamza Mostafa, condemned the terrorist attack – writing on X: “This cowardly act goes against the civic values that bring us together.

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“We will not back down from our commitment to equal citizenship… and we also affirm the state’s pledge to exert all its efforts to combat criminal organisations.”

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Pic: Reuters
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Pic: Reuters

Reports suggest that IS has attempted to attack several churches in Syria since Assad fell, but this is the first time they have succeeded.

Footage filmed by Syria’s civil defence, the White Helmets, showed scenes of destruction inside the church – including bloodied floors and shattered pews.

The Greek foreign ministry says it “unequivocally condemns the abhorrent terrorist suicide bombing”, and called on Syria “to guarantee the safety” of Christians with new measures.

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Bride shot dead on wedding day in south of France, reports say

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Bride shot dead on wedding day in south of France, reports say

A bride was shot dead on her wedding day in the south of France after she and her groom were targeted by hooded and armed attackers, according to local media.

The pair were leaving the party in a car along with a 13-year-old child when they were shot at, reports said.

Prosecutors have opened an investigation for “murder and attempted murder by an organised gang”.

The 27-year-old bride was fatally shot. One of the attackers was also killed after being struck by the bride and groom’s car as they tried to escape the ambush, French newspaper Le Figaro reports.

The incident reportedly happened in the village of Goult near the southeast French city of Avignon.

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Three people were injured: the groom, his sister and the 13-year-old child, Le Figaro reported.

Goult’s mayor Didier Perello said he believed the attack was “targeted”, adding that he was “angry, revolted, in shock”, in comments reported by the newspaper.

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Stunning first images from powerful space telescope show new ‘peek of cosmos’

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Stunning first images from powerful space telescope show new 'peek of cosmos'

Stunning images showing distant parts of the universe – including one of a region situated thousands of light years from Earth – have been captured by a powerful new telescope.

The camera at the Vera C Rubin Observatory in Chile is expected to reveal new details from space on an unprecedented scale as it makes further observations during the next decade.

Scientists expect it to chart thousands of asteroids not previously identified – and believe it will discover within months whether there is a ninth planet in our solar system.

The new images show the light from millions of stars and galaxies in observations which took the world’s largest and most powerful camera only 10 hours to complete.

One image shows a mosaic of the Trifid and Lagoon nebulae, a star-forming region which is 9,000 light years from Earth.

A single light year is the distance light travels in 12 months. In space, it “zips through at 186,000 miles per second and 5.88 trillion miles per year”, says NASA.

A cluster of galaxies in the Virgo cluster.
Pic: NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory
Image:
Galaxies pictured in the Virgo Cluster. Pic: NSF-DOE Vera C Rubin Observatory

Another image shows thousands of galaxies in the Virgo Cluster, in what scientists said offers just a “peek at the cosmos”.

The observatory is jointly funded by the National Science Foundation, an independent agency of the US government.

A cluster of galaxies including spiral galaxies in the vast Virgo cluster. 
Pic: NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory
Image:
The first images offer a small taste of what might come. Pic: NSF-DOE Vera C Rubin Observatory

The foundation’s chief of staff Brian Stone told CNN the observatory “will capture more information about our universe than all optical telescopes throughout history combined”.

Rubin has been built on a mountain in the Andes, a region in central Chile which is also home to other observatories due to its dry air and dark skies.

The telescope’s work will “capture the cosmos in exquisite detail” as it repeatedly scans the sky for 10 years to “create an ultra-wide, ultra-high-definition time-lapse record of our universe”.

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Scientists in the UK will be working in partnership with the teams at Rubin to help process the detailed information and images captured by the telescope.

The National Science Foundation is expected to release more images and video from Rubin’s initial work later on Monday.

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