By John Philips
ROME
A further 53 migrants have died attempting to cross from Libya to Italy including 12 Christians who were alleged to have been thrown overboard because of their religion, witnesses and police sources have said.
Palermo police arrested 15 people from the Ivory Coast, Mali and Senegal on charges of murder aggravated by religious hatred after 10 other passengers from Nigeria and Ghana said the group had slung the Christians overboard at the height of a row during the crossing.
Police sources said those who managed to survive had done so "because they strenuously opposed the attempt to drown them, in some cases forming a human chain".
During the trip a smaller number of Christian passengers from Nigeria and Ghana were threatened by the 15 Muslims who said they would be thrown into the sea because they were Christian - and then carried out their threat, according to some of the survivors, who were later rescued by the ship Ellensborg and taken to Sicily.
The survivors said they were among 105 people, mostly from Senegal and the Ivory Coast, who left Libya on Tuesday aboard a dinghy.
In a separate incident, 41 people perished in the Canal of Sicily, according to four survivors who landed in the Sicilian port of Trapani on Thursday aboard the Italian navy vessel Foscari, the Italian navy said.
The Italian navy vessel Foscari saved 586 migrants, including 78 women, many of whom were pregnant, and 58 children, five of whom were infants, in three separate operations, officials said.
