Italy recovers 217 bodies of refugees from sunken ship
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Refugees waiting to be rescued during an operation at the Mediterranean sea in front of the Libyan coast, May 24, 2016.
Italian emergency workers have recovered at least 217 bodies of refugees from the wreck of an overcrowded boat that sank in the Mediterranean last year.
According to the reports, in a statement, the Navy said a team of 150 professionals from Italian Red Cross, the Navy, fire service, and a forensic team of Milan university professors were working around the clock to examine the bodies.
Autopsies have been carried out on more than 50 of the victims, it added.
The Navy noted that police scientists, in close coordination with a local public prosecutor, have begun making reports on their findings.
This came after the vessel was hauled off the seabed and taken to a naval site in the Italian southern island of Sicily.
In one of the most shocking incidents involving refugees, hundreds of people were feared to have perished in April 2015, after a crammed fishing boat capsized in Libyan waters south of the Italian island of Lampedusa. It sank about 135 km north of Libya, from where it departed.
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