MILAN — Police in Sicily have detained 15 people for allegedly throwing 12 migrants overboard during a Muslim assault against Christians on the high seas amid Italy’s migration crisis.
Palermo police said in a statement Thursday that they learned of the incident while interviewing tearful survivors from Nigeria and Ghana who arrived in Palermo Wednesday morning after being rescued at sea.
The survivors said they had boarded a rubber boat April 14 at the Libyan coast with 105 passengers aboard. During the crossing, the migrants from Nigeria and Ghana — believed to be Christians — were threatened with being abandoned at sea by some 15 other passengers from the Ivory Coast, Senegal, Mali and Guinea Bissau.
The statement said the motive was that the victims “professed the Christian faith while the aggressors were Muslim.”
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