An Italian coastguard vessel (left) picks up some of the refugees who jumped from the Open Arms
[Chris Grodotzki / Sea Watch] 
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
