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Survivors of Libyan shipwreck report 7 Syrians dead

Aug 20, 2016 | 8:00 AM

MILAN — The U.N. refugee agency says that survivors of a shipwreck off Libya have reported at least seven people, including three children, died when the small wooden boat carrying 27 people, mostly Syrian refugees, capsized.

A Spanish aid group recovered five bodies, including two Syrian girls aged 8 months and 5 years, during the rescue Thursday.

UNHCR representative Medea Savary said that survivors arriving in the Sicilian port of Trapani on Saturday reported that a woman and another child also died, but the bodies couldn’t be recovered.

Survivors said that the boat began taking on water a few hours after departing Libya, and eventually capsized.