The bodies of hundreds of migrants have been recovered from the hull of a boat that sank in the Mediterranean last year.

Some 500 people drowned in April 2015 during one of the worst known disasters involving people trying to reach Europe by sea.

The vessel sank about 85 miles north of Libya, from where it departed.

Italian authorities raised it from the seabed last week and it was taken to a naval site in the Port of Augusta in southeastern Sicily.

Sep: Migrants' Route Through Europe

When it arrived, a navy official said he thought around 300 bodies were still in the hold, which added to 169 recovered from the nearby seabed.


A team of 150 professionals and volunteers from the navy, fire service, Italian Red Cross and a forensic team of Milan university professors have been working to remove bodies and examine them.

Post mortems have been carried out on some of the victims so far, and police scientists and a local public prosecutor have begun making reports on their findings.

One Million Migrants Reach Europe

Twenty-eight migrants survived the tragedy, and there was a suggestion at the time that the boat may have capsized after passengers began moving around when they saw a rescue team approach.

Thousands of people a year, many of them fleeing war in the Middle East, have crossed the Mediterranean in unseaworthy or overcrowded boats.

In 2015, at least 3,770 people are thought to have died on Mediterranean routes, mostly by drowning when their boats capsized