At least six Chinese illegal immigrants died off the south coast of Sicily on Thursday and three others were missing after people smugglers threw them off a boat, possibly to evade capture by police, authorities said. Rescue teams alerted by a passing merchant ship found six survivors struggling in the water nearly 14 miles (23 km) south of Sicily. "We're still searching the zone to see if there are other bodies," said one port authority official. "It seems that they were dumped in the water." One of the dead was a woman, the official said. The survivors said they boarded a boat in Malta for the trip to Italy but were forced to jump into the sea when they were still many miles from the coast. --More 0303 Local Time 0003 GMT
