week1─地中海船難

'Genocide' charged as boat capsizes in Mediterranean

By Ashley Fantz, Josh Levs and Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN, April 20, 2015

As a boat packed with hundreds of migrants capsized in Mediterranean waters, many were trapped inside behind locked doors.

That's the account one survivor of the deadly shipwreck gave to investigators, according to a statement released Sunday by prosecutors in Catania, Italy.

The Bangladeshi migrant's description provides new details about what may have happened aboard the ship, which sent out a distress call in the dark of night Saturday after a couple of days at sea.

As rescuers approached, authorities say migrants on the boat moved to one side, hoping to be saved. Their movement caused the large, multilevel boat to capsize about 110 kilometers (almost 70 miles) north of Libya, sending the desperate crowd plunging into the sea, their chance of survival slim.

The migrant, who spoke to investigators after being airlifted to a hospital in Catania, is among dozens who authorities say were saved from the sinking vessel. He told investigators there were 950 people on board -- a number prosecutors haven't verified. Maltese authorities, who are working with Italian rescuers, earlier said around 50 of 700 people on the boat had been saved.

Many on lower levels of the boat were trapped inside because smugglers had locked the doors, the migrant said, according to prosecutors. The Italian Coast Guard is collecting statements from other survivors, prosecutors said.

It was the latest in a series of dangerous voyages for hundreds of men, women and children who boarded the boat in Libya, hoping to make it safely to Europe. Passengers on the boat were from a number of nations, including Algeria, Egypt, Somalia, Niger, Senegal, Mali, Zambia, Bangladesh and Ghana, prosecutors said.

While the shipwreck was an accident, Malta's Prime Minister slammed the human traffickers who he accused of risking people's lives by putting them on rickety ships in unpredictable waters.

"Gangs of criminals are putting people on a boat, sometimes even at gunpoint," Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said. "They're putting them on the road to death, really, and nothing else."

It's "genocide -- nothing less than genocide, really," Muscat told CNN.

Structure of the lead:
WHO-hundreds of migrants
WHEN-April 20,2015
WHAT-a boat capsized
WHY-the central core of the boat was lost
WHERE-in Mediterranean waters
HOW-not given

Keywords:
1.genocide (n.) 集體屠殺
2.capsize (v.) 使傾覆
3.prosecutor (n.) 檢察官
4.distress (v.) 使苦惱
5.multilevel (n.) 多層次
6.airlift (v.) 空運
7.verify (v.) 判定
8.smuggler (n.) 走私者
9.trafficker (n.) 販子
10.rickety (a.) 搖晃的
11.gunpoint (n.) 槍口