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Swedes Seize Ship

STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- A Latvian fishing trawler with 48 refugees on board was seized by the Swedish Coast Guard off the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea Wednesday morning, a police spokesman said. The refugees, 20 of them children, were of Kurdish and Bangladeshi origin. The refugee ship, which was flying the Estonian flag, was discovered by a coast guard cutter on routine reconnaissance duty and escorted to port in Farosund, a small community on the northern part of Gotland, 400 kilometers southeast of Stockholm. The captain had hung sacks to conceal the name of the ship, which made the coast guard suspicious, police spokesman Reiner Lindgren said.

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