Italian Secret Service: People-Smugglers May Arrange Mass Drowning for Public Sympathy

According to Italian newspaper Il Giornale, the Italian secret services, referred to by the publication as “our 007”, are warning of the possibility of people-smugglers purposely causing a disaster at sea in order to garner sympathy from the West and resume their illegal trade, which has been declining over the last year. Such a move could be a repeat of other major humanitarian disasters such as a shipwreck which killed around 700 migrants on April 18th, 2015, and led to the commencement of Operation Sophia and an outpouring of support for migrant ferry NGOs operating in the Mediterranean Sea. -- More...