A Palestinian refugee told the BBC that, after the boat set sail on in the early hours of Friday morning, Libyans pursued the vessel firing shots in the air. When the vessel entered Italian waters, he said, they started shooting at the migrants.
They killed two of the skippers and a female migrant before opening fire on the vessel itself, the refugee said. Shots pierced the hull and the engine room, he said, causing the boat to take on water.
The shots were reportedly fired by Libyans who “did not look official” and may have been militiamen, according to Maltese media sources. The Libyan Navy has strongly denied any suggestion that the Libyan coastguard were involved.
“We deny this completely,” Navy Spokesman Ayob Ghasem told the Libya Herald. “None of our boats were in that area at that time.”
