Survivors of a deadly shipwreck in the Mediterranean last weekend has been relocated at a migrant center in the Sicilian port city of Catania in Italy.
A total of 27 survivors of the capsizing ship are currently housed at the Mineo center in the town of Mineo southwest of Catania, after being taken to the Catania port by an Italian Coast Guard vessel at Monday night.
The Mineo center, a sprawling former residential base for United States naval personnel, is the largest center in the Sicily, and it currently hosts more than 3,200 migrants and asylum seekers, most of them sub-Saharan Africans who are spending years here waiting for political asylum.
"These people don't have enough financial means and they have to stay here until their applications for asylum are granted. That often takes 12 to 13 months," said Sebastiano Maccarrone, director of the Mineo migrant center.
"They are in good health. But they suffer psychologically after this traumatizing experience," said Raffaele Zappala, from a medical rescue team in Catania.
The Italian authorities have arrested the captain and a crew member as the Coast Guard vessel arrived at the port. The two men are believed to be traffickers on the migrant boat that capsized off Libya on Sunday.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said only 28 were known to have survived and more than 800 others were believed to have drowned, making it the deadliest such disaster in the Mediterranean.
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