Italy police detain 10 suspected of people trafficking, murder

Italian police detained 10 men on Friday on suspicion of multiple homicide and aiding illegal immigration after 52 refugees were found suffocated in the hold of a boat this week, a Sicilian prosecutor said.

Police in the capital Palermo stopped the suspects after they arrived with the corpses of the victims and hundreds of survivors on the Swedish coast guard ship Poseidon.

Rescuers found the bodies trapped under the deck of a wooden boat this week, shortly before 71 migrants were discovered dead in a truck in Austria.

Seven Moroccans, two Syrians and one Libyan, all acting as crew on the boat, were charged with murder based on testimony from some of the more than 500 refugees on board. 10 survivors said they had been trapped in the hull, which was 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) high and 4 metres long, Palermo prosecutor Maurizio Scala said. They were kicked, punched and threatened with knives if they tried to get out. "They were all forced to stay in hellish conditions below decks," Scala said.

The prosecutor's office said in a statement the deaths were caused by oxygen deprivation and inhaling engine fumes, as well as the actions of the crew. The refugees trying to cross the Mediterranean in rickety boats are fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East, often paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for transport.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday the number crossing this year had passed 300,000, far exceeding 2014s total, while more than 2,500 had died. A shipwreck off the coast of Libya on Thursday killed 82 people and left about 100 unaccounted for, a spokesman for the Red Crescent humanitarian organisation said.

The 10 detained in Italy are being held in prison in Palermo while authorities consider whether to sentence them.