Egypt Detains Migrant Ship Heading for Italy
Egypt's coastguard on Friday detained a migrant boat heading for Italy, retrieved two bodies from the sea and rescued five injured people, security sources and medics said.
Coastguard officers also detained for questioning 129 migrants who were aboard the boat in the Mediterranean off the coast of the northern province of Kafr el-Sheikh, the sources said.
They said an Eritrean man and a Somali woman were found dead.
Health ministry spokesman Hossam Abdel Ghaffar confirmed the deaths, and said five people were hurt.
It was also not immediately clear where the boat had sailed from.
The sources said a search was under way for any more bodies, adding that those detained would be expelled to their respective countries after the investigation.
The number of migrants entering the European Union illegally in 2014 almost tripled to 276,000, according to EU border agency Frontex, nearly 220,000 of them arriving via the Mediterranean.
The chaotic situation in Egypt's neighbor Libya has sparked a rise in the number of migrant vessels setting out for Europe from its unpoliced ports, carrying refugees fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.
Source: Agence France Presse
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