Drowned migrant baby in ‘viral’ photo was probably Somali

Italian police said on Wednesday that the dead baby plucked out of the sea and whose photo sparked an international reaction this week was probably a six-month-old Somali boy whose mother also most likely died in the shipwreck.

A German rescuer working for humanitarian organisation Sea-Watch pulled the baby from the sea last Friday after a wooden boat carrying more than 400 migrants capsized and sank some 58km off the Libyan coast.

The boy's body was handed over to the crew of the Vega, an Italian navy ship. The Vega brought 135 survivors and 45 bodies recovered after the shipwreck to the southern port city of Reggio Calabria on Sunday, including those of three small children, two boys and a girl.

"The photograph corresponds with the corpse of a six-month-old boy, who survivors of the shipwreck said was from Somalia," a high-ranking Italian police official said on Wednesday. "Survivors we talked to said the mother was not among the bodies recovered," he said.

A Syrian and a Moroccan, who were among the survivors of the shipwreck brought to Reggio Calabria on Sunday, were arrested by the police. They stand accused of disaster at sea and international people smuggling.

Migrants told police that a third man from Sudan, who is thought to have been the captain of the vessel, drowned.

Police said that the severely overcrowded wooden fishing boat described by survivors as "old, decrepit, un-seaworthy" and carrying no life jackets or floatation devices, left late last Thursday from Sabratha, Libya.

They said that a leak developed in the hull and from there "water poured in and the vessel sank, leaving no escape for any of the many migrants below deck, nor for those unable to swim."