A 16-year-old girl was raped and choked to death by an Iraqi migrant as their boat sank off the coast of Italy.
According to The Daily Mail, survivors claimed the man, who had just watched his wife and daughter drown, attacked the girl to ‘vent’ his fury.
News Agency AGI, citing a police investigation, alleges that while the boat was sinking, the 27-year-old man took time to rape and suffocate the teenager in front of her mother.
AGI reports that The State Police of Reggio Calabria executed a detention order issued by the Locri prosecutor’s office against the migrant.
The incident occurred during the disaster at sea that saw only 12 people rescued of the estimated 70 believed to have been on board.
The boat, which originated in Turkey, was off the southern coast of Italy, and the UN refugee agency UNHCR has reported that the migrants came from Iran, Syria, and Iraq.
The man has since been arrested on suspicion of murdering the girl, who was also of Iraqi origin and had been making the journey to Europe with her mother. She survived the disaster and reported her daughter’s killing to police.
**********
In a statement, officers confirmed the sailing boat was adrift off the coast of Italy when the man ‘vented his aggression on a 16-year-old Iraqi girl, the daughter of another survivor, leading to her death by suffocation’.
A police spokesperson did not immediately confirm details of the attack.
Those who made it out with their lives described their perilous journey, telling charity workers that ‘they were travelling without life jackets and that some boats did not stop to help them.’
