MILAN (AP) —Survivors rescued from a deflating rubber dinghy in the central Mediterranean Sea have reported that some 50 people who departed Libya with them a week ago perished during the journey, the humanitarian rescue group SOS Mediterranee said Thursday. Creazzo said the survivors were traumatized and unable to give full accounts of what had transpired during the voyage. Humanitarian organizations often rely on accounts of survivors when pulling together the numbers of dead and missing at sea, presumed to have died. The U.N. International Organization for Migration says 227 people have died along the perilous central Mediterranean route this year through March 11, not counting the new reported missing and presumed dead. The survivors said the boat departed Zawiya, Libya with 75 people on board, including some women and at least one small child.
