Mohammed Ali Malek
IN PHOTO: Mohammed Ali Malek is seen at Catania's tribunal, April 24, 2015. Italian prosecutors blamed the captain of a grossly overloaded fishing boat for a collision which capsized and sank his vessel off Libya, drowning hundreds of migrants including many women and children locked below deck. Italian police arrested the 27-year-old Tunisian, named as Mohammed Ali Malek, who is believed to have been the captain of the ship. REUTERS/Antonio Parrinello

Nourredine Mahjoub, alias Mohammed Ali Malek, who allegedly captained the ill-fated boat, killing 800 migrants after it capsized off Libya coast on April 18, was coerced to steer the small ship, his brother claimed on Saturday. Malek is facing multiple homicides, causing a shipwreck and people smuggling in Italy.

His brother, Makrem Mahjoub, said the 27-year-old Malek was not the culprit, but another victim and among the migrants who wished to escape violence and poverty in Libya. He argued that Malek, equipped with experience being a fisherman, was impelled at gunpoint to help the traffickers.

“My brother was recruited by Libyans to work in a café in Libya a few weeks ago, but afterwards, he was forced under threat by smugglers to pilot the voyage because he knows a little about the sea and worked with our father, fishing,” Makrem told Reuters in an interview.

Makrem added he received a call from Malek days before the tragic drowning of migrants and said the latter was being threatened using Kalashnikovs, ordering him to maneuver the ship. During the call, Makrem recalled Malek “was in shock and crying.” At that time, too, Malek was already aboard the vessel.

April 28’s tragedy was seen as the worst Mediterranean Sea disaster for decades. When rescue came, hundreds of dead bodies were afloat. There were only 28 survivors.

Vietnamese Boat People

Migration to Europe is not a modern concept. Between late ‘70s and ‘80s, Vietnamese, numbering close to a million, sought to abscond communism by sailing through the South China Sea.

Known as the Vietnamese Boat people, almost every month at that time, around 10,000 Vietnamese migrants boarded boats many of which did not reach their destination as pirates attacked their vessels, or thousands drowned or starved to death.

Some of those who survived reached the United Kingdom, while others who landed in Hong Kong and Singapore faced detention in centres. After many years, a solution was endeavoured by the international community and refugees were resettled across the globe — Canada, France, Germany and Australia.

But efforts are not enough as there are still thousands who have not been given resettlement, but instead, have been held in detention. In Australia, Prime Minister Tony Abbott denied resettlement to asylum seekers who are detained in camps in Nauru and Papua New Guinea.

Following the sea tragedy last week, the European Union met in an emergency summit in Brussels on Thursday to propose measures in reducing death during migration journey. Among measures proposed were resettling 5,000 asylum seekers and arresting and destroying trafficker’s vessels.

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