Survivors of 2013 shipwreck honor dead on Italian island

Survivors of a 2013 capsizing have joined residents of a tiny Italian isle to honor 368 migrants who perished on the anniversary of the offshore tragedy

LAMPEDUSA, Sicily -- Survivors of a 2013 capsizing, one of the Mediterranean's more deadly migrant tragedies, on Sunday joined residents of a tiny Italian isle in an anniversary ceremony to honor the 368 people who died.

Participants in the memorial tossed flowers into the crystalline waters off Lampedusa, a southern Italian island closer to North Africa than to the Italian mainland.

Many of the dead in the Oct. 3, 2013 accident were Eritreans and Ethiopians. They were trapped in the boat when it overturned or drowned trying to swim ashore. The capsizing occurred just off an uninhabited islet and less than a kilometer (half-mile) from Lampedusa itself.

Among those who journeyed to the island were survivors from the capsizing of the crowded boat, one of countless vessels that human traffickers had launched from Libyan shores.