Yiohan

The Yiohan was the name of a ship involved in human trafficking. It made its way to the coast of Sicily, on the night of December 25, 1996 (Christmas Eve), carrying illegal immigrants from Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan. Its drunken captain Yusuf Al Halal forced over 300 immigrants at gun-point onto another smaller ship. Survivors claim that he deliberately steered & rammed the huger Yiohan metal ship onto the smaller wooden ship, thereby causing the deaths of 283 people. He was charged with murder, as he didn't even bother to save the lives of people who were drowning in water. But the charges against him were dropped due to a technical issue, the accident happened 19 miles away from the Sicilian coast in international waters and didn't fall under Italian jurisdiction. The incident was downplayed and denied for very long until 2001, when a fisherman found an ID card of a drowned Sri Lankan victim and contacted a journalist of La Repubblica newspaper in Rome.

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