‘I couldn’t save any of them,’ says Italian who helped after migrant shipwreck

Steccato Di Cutro, Italy — It was a Sunday that Italian fisherman Vincenzo Luciano will never forget. Well before dawn he ran to the beach near his house and started pulling bodies from the sea, victims of a deadly migrant shipwreck that has so far claimed 67 lives.

It was not until the sun rose that, having struggled by the torchlight from a friend's mobile phone as the undertow tried to grab the bodies back, that he realised the scale of the devastation around him.

“I was not ready for this, I panicked ... I saw 10 bodies all on top of each other,” he said, adding that other would-be rescuers had also reached the scene quickly.

Italian authorities say between 150-200 migrants were on board the wooden boat that, after setting sail from Turkey, broke apart off Steccato di Cutro in southern Italy.

Most were from Afghanistan, others from Pakistan, Syria, the Palestinian territories, Iran and Somalia. About 80 were rescued, and the search for others is continuing.

Relatives have travelled to the nearby city of Crotone from northern Europe, to mourn their dead in a sports hall where coffins have been laid out. At least 16 of the victims were underage, authorities said.

Luciano, who rushed to help in the early hours of Sunday after being alerted by a friend who saw the tragedy unfold, also joined rescue efforts on Monday and Tuesday, when he said he helped recover four bodies.

He spoke of his sorrow and guilt that he could not do more.

“My frustration is that I was unable to save any of them,” Luciano, who also owns a restaurant, said on the beach surrounded by wreckage from the boat.

In particular, he could not stop thinking of a little boy he tried to rescue on the first morning.

“He was two or three years old. I pulled him out with his eyes still open and I said, ‘maybe I'll save him’. But I had to close those eyes,” Luciano said.

“If I had been there one minute, or 20 seconds earlier, perhaps I could have saved him.”

Reuters