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76 refugees jump overboard in desperate bid to swim to Italy and end their nine-day ordeal
An Italian coastguard vessel (left) picks up some of the refugees who jumped from the Open Arms
[Chris Grodotzki / Sea Watch] 
Mr Smalls and 13 other Freedom Flotilla Coalition activists who tried to break Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza aboard the Handala ship remain in detention and on hunger strike
MORE than 70 refugees jumped overboard from an NGO rescue ship today in a desperate bid to swim to Palermo on the Italian island of Sicily.
Seventy-six of the 275 refugees on board the Open Arms threw themselves into the water in the morning, their ninth day waiting for a European country to let them come ashore.
The Open Arms’s crew managed to provide the 76 with lifejackets before the Italian coastguard brought them to land.
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Mr Smalls and 13 other Freedom Flotilla Coalition activists who tried to break Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza aboard the Handala ship remain in detention and on hunger strike
