Iraqi girl raped and killed by fellow migrant on stranded ship

Italian authorities are investigating the brutal murder of a 16-year-old Iraqi girl who was allegedly raped and strangled to death by another migrant as their boat sank 120 miles off the coast of southern Italy.

The suspect, also from Iraq, is said to have attacked the teenager in a fit of rage after seeing his wife and daughter drown when the overcrowded migrant boat caught fire and capsized on June 17, AGI news agency reported.

The girl was allegedly strangled in front of her mother, who reported the murder to Italian state police after she, the killer and several other survivors were rescued and taken to the Calabrian port town of Roccella Ionica, Corriere Della Sera reported.

The 27-year-old suspect was arrested on suspicion of premeditated murder after the grieving mother’s testimony was corroborated by other witnesses, the outlet reported.

“We are conducting further investigations,” local prosecutor Giuseppe Casciaro told Corriere Della Sera.

While the investigation is ongoing, the suspect is reportedly being held in Catanzaro prison, where he was transferred after being hospitalized for injuries sustained in the shipwreck.

The suspect, the victim and her mother were among about 75 Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian migrants on board the doomed boat that left Turkey in mid-June.

The group had been at sea for about eight days when, on the night of June 16, the boat’s engine caught fire and capsized.

Only twelve survivors could be rescued from the wreck hours later. One of the rescued women later died on land.

By last week, the Italian Coast Guard had recovered the bodies of 36 victims from the troubled waters off the coast of Calabria.

On Tuesday, security forces in Iraq’s Kurdistan province announced that four suspects had been arrested on human trafficking charges in connection with the incident, the New Arab newspaper reported.

The Central Mediterranean route is one of the deadliest in the world, according to experts. According to the United Nations, more than 800 people have died or are missing while crossing the sea since the end of June.

With post wires