Human traffickers stopped rescue after disaster - survivors

A knife-wielding human trafficker prevented survivors of a shipwreck from pulling others to safety, leaving them to drown in the dark, one of the surviving migrants said today.

Up to 500 people are believed to have died in last week's disaster, when an overcrowded boat sank in the southern Mediterranean. Just 41 people were eventually saved by a passing merchant ship and brought to Greece on April 16.
Muaz Mahmud, 25, from Oromia in Ethiopia, managed to escape the packed vessel as it was sinking and clambered onto a nearby boat. However, a people smuggler prevented them from helping others still in the sea, saying they had to leave immediately.
"I told him 'don't start motor please we have to save these people'. He took a knife. "I am going to kill you, we don't stand here," and then I just cried," Mahmud told reporters, speaking in broken English.

He had been with his wife and 2-month-old baby, having paid $1,800 each for the passage. They are feared drowned.
While the handful of survivors recounted their tales of horror, families of those still missing, many of whom were believed to be from Somalia, described how their relatives had hoped to reach Europe and escape...