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Egypt grabs 8 human smugglers
06/11/2007 20:01 - (SA)
Cairo - Egyptian authorities arrested eight people on Tuesday for facilitating people trafficking between Egypt and Italy following the death of 22 would-be Egyptian immigrants en route to the European country.
One of the arrested individuals is allegedly a head of a criminal group, Cairo security sources said.
Only a day earlier, police forces had arrested four individuals allegedly belonging to another five-member crime cell that also smuggles Egyptians to Italy by sea.
Meanwhile, at least 16 suspects are still at large including an Egyptian who operates in Fayyum, 103km north-west of Cairo, said the province's police department.
The arrested individuals will be charged with "fraud, carelessness and causing the death" of the drowned Egyptians, according to a police source who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Last week about 22 illegal immigrants trying to enter Italy drowned when fishing vessels capsized in two separate incidents. Local news reports said that more than 125 people are still missing.
Eleven lost their lives when their boat sank off the shores of Syracuse in Sicily, with contradicting reports as to where the other boat sank.
Italian authorities recovered 11 bodies, according to a Monday report by the independent al-Masri al-Youm newspaper citing the Assistant Foreign Minister Ahmed al-Koweisni.
Bodies to be returned
A spokesperson for the Egyptian embassy in Rome, however, said earlier that while it was believed that the 11 would-be immigrants whose bodies had been recovered in Sicily were indeed Egyptian, the embassy together with Italian authorities still needed to determine this with certainty.
"This process won't be completed for another week after which the bodies will be transported back to Egypt," he said on Monday evening.
An Egyptian police probe revealed that international trafficking rings operating in Libya were involved in smuggling Egyptians into Europe in return for $3 000 (about R20$nbsp;000) for each illegal immigrant.
Thousands of illegal immigrants from Africa land on the island of Lampedusa between Sicily and Libya every year.
- SAPA
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