GENEVA , Switzerland, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- About 500 migrants from Egypt to Malta are believed to have drowned after their boat was deliberately sunk, an international migration group said Monday.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM), a Geneva, Switzerland-based group with 156 member nations, said midway through a voyage, beginning Sept. 6 in Damietta, Egypt, the smugglers who organized the trip, traveling in a separate boat, ordered the migrants to board a different, and apparently less seaworthy, vessel. The migrants refused.