Mourners gather on the Italian coast after at least 60 people killed when migrant sailboat capsized
On the coastline of southern Italy, a small group gathered at the water’s edge.
They could not go any further into the Ionian Sea although they clearly wished they could.
“Is Europe worth all this trouble, I swear to God it’s not,” says a man called Setar.
“Why put your wife and children through this?”
Setar Sheke asked ‘is Europe worth all this trouble?’
Coastguard footage of the boat after it had capsized
Two men mourn at the water’s edge after the tragedy
The shock is real, the feelings raw after the deaths of 60 or more migrants in the central Mediterranean in this incident alone.
The Italian coastguard says 20 bodies have been recovered off the coast of Calabria after a sailboat packed with migrants capsized and sank.
Some 76 people were believed to be on board, and only 11 survived. The rest are missing and feared dead.
Passengers clung to the remains of the semi-submerged craft some 120 miles from the Italian coast but assistance – in the form of the coastguard – took four days to arrive.
Only 11 managed to survive the ordeal.
Smugglers organised the journey from a place near Bodrum in Turkey, using a well-used migration seaway through the Mediterranean.
It took the Italian coastguard four days to respond
Only 11 people survived the incident
More than 70 paid for a spot in the vessel, with the majority formed by Kurds from Iran and Iraq.
Some passengers told their relatives that they would travelling “like VIPs”, but that was just a lie spun by the smugglers.
There were few provisions on board.
We found a woman called Mitra Ghasem Karimi, sitting under the hull of an old boat in the Italian port of Roccella Ionica.
It was clear that Ms Karimi had been crying.
Originally from Iran, she now lives in the Swedish capital of Stockholm. She told me that her brother Pourya, 41, and sister Somma, 36, had boarded that craft.
Mitra Ghasem Karimi said her brother and sister were both on board the ship
Mitra spent €6,000 cash to hire a helicopter to search for any sign of her brother and sister or the boat they were travelling on
Mitra sat under hull of an old boat in the Italian port of Roccella Ionica
She said: “There was no water, there was no food in the boat – but to the families and the people who got in that damn boat, (the smugglers) said yes, there is water, food.
“My brother and sister had life jackets, but they would not let them take them with them. Why?”
Mitra and her husband said they wanted to hire a helicopter so they could fly over the remains of the vessel. I asked them what they were expecting to see.
She replied: “Maybe some bodies, maybe I can find the body of my own brother and sister, to find the bodies and take them to my mum, so my mum can mourn.”
Mitra had stowed her brother and sister’s Iranian passports securely in her bag, and she burst into tears as she took them out to show me.
“They just wanted a better life, the people who got into that boat. Why can’t they have that life in their country, their damn country?” she said.
Read more from Sky News:
Hollywood legend Donald Sutherland has died
Filipino soldiers fight off ‘armed’ Chinese coastguard
Putin’s Asian charm offensive arrives in Vietnam
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
It took the best part of a day to hire a helicopter – along with 6,000 Euros in cash – but Mitra did not find the bodies of her brother and sister.
Her siblings remain lost at sea.
But she has recordings of their voices stored on phone and she has hovered above the waters where they lost their lives.
It may have brought her a small measure of peace.
New pictures show the moment of impact as an Israeli missile hit a Beirut apartment block and exploded.
The block was one of five buildings destroyed by airstrikes on Friday alone.
Israel launched airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut in a fourth consecutive day of intense attacks.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press photographer captured a sequence of images showing an Israeli bomb approaching and hitting a multi-storey apartment building in Beirut’s Tayouneh area.
Richard Weir, a senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch, reviewed the close-up photos to determine what type of weapon was used.
“The bomb and components visible in the photographs, including the strake, wire harness cover, and tail fin section, are consistent with a Mk-84 series 2,000-pound class general purpose bomb equipped with Boeing’s joint directed attack munition tail kit,” he told AP.
Pics: AP
Smoke covers a building that collapses following the strike. Pic: AP
Deadly strikes as bombardment stepped up
Israel stepped up its bombardment this week – an escalation that has coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy towards a ceasefire.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked munitions warehouses, a headquarters and other Hezbollah infrastructure. It issued a warning on social media identifying buildings ahead of the strikes.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike killed five members of the same family in a home in Ain Qana in the southern province of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon’s state media said.
The report said a mother, father and their three children were killed but didn’t provide their ages.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Three other Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded 32 in different parts of Tyre province on Friday, also in south Lebanon, the report said.
Video footage also showed a building being struck and turning into a cloud of rubble and debris that billowed into Horsh Beirut, the city’s main park.
Residents check the site of the airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut. Pic: AP
More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon during 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah – most of them since mid-September.
About 27% of those killed were women and children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Israel dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon from September, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and end its barrages in Israel.
Friday’s strikes come as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has asked Iran to help secure a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The prime minister appeared to urge Ali Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to convince the militant group to agree to a deal that could require it to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah and for decades has been funding and arming the Lebanese militant group.
On Thursday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security cabinet, said that prospects for a ceasefire with Lebanon were the most promising since the conflict began.
The Washington Post reported Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushing to advance a Lebanon ceasefire to deliver an early foreign policy win to his ally, US President-elect Donald Trump.
“Super high-IQ revolutionaries” who are willing to work 80+ hours a week are being urged to join Elon Musk’s new cost-cutting department in Donald Trump’s incoming US government.
The X and Tesla owner will co-lead the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
And in a post on X, the official DOGE account put out a call to arms for people to sign up and help “dismantle government bureaucracy”.
The post said: “We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE.
“We don’t need more part-time idea generators.
“We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.
“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.”
Read more:
Who is in Trump’s top team?
Trump’s cabinet signals tough stance on China
Elon Musk speaking at an event held at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Pic: AP Photo/Alex Brandon
In a reply to an interested party, Mr Musk suggested the lucky applicants would be working for free.
“Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lost of enemies & compensation is zero,” the world’s richest man wrote.
“What a great deal!”
When announcing the new department, President-elect Donald Trump said Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.
Mr Musk has previously made clear his desire to see cuts to “government waste” and in a post on his X platform suggested he could axe as many as three-quarters of the more than 400 federal departments in the US, writing: “99 is enough.”
At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.
A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.
Two people remain in a critical condition following the blaze. Pic: AP
They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.
Several residents were treated for smoke inhalation. Pic: AP
Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.
The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.
Read more from Sky News:
Mass displacement in Gaza – people unsure where to go
Donald Trump picks vaccine sceptic as health secretary
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.
All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.
Relatives wait for news outside the care home. Pic: AP
Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.
It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.
The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports7 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Environment1 year agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway