The old fishing boat, a battered artifact about 20 meters long, set sail from the port of Izmir, in western Turkey.
The ship, packed with some 177 people, sailed for about four days around the Greek coast looking for the tip of southern Italy through the Ionian Sea.
The route is becoming more frequent in the trips offered by traffickers to migrants escaping from Asian countries.
But almost always it is done with relatively safe sailboats and with greater fortune.
This time, when the boat was already 150 meters from the coast, after a journey of some 1,200 kilometers, a tremendous wave sent it against the rocks and broke it violently in two.
The migrants fell into the sea.
Some were able to swim to the shore of the beach of Steccato di Cutro, a Calabrian tourist town,
20 kilometers from Crotone.
At least 59 others drowned, their bodies ending up covered in a blanket on the sand or rescued by the Coast Guard.
Some 20 children died, including at least one newborn.
The shipwreck, one of the most serious on the Italian coast, is another bloodstain in the repeated failure of Italy and the European Union to create a common migration policy.
The first hypotheses indicate that the ship ran into a reef and then went against the rocks.
The information, disseminated by the Italian section of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), also rules out, based on the testimonies of survivors, that there was an explosion, as indicated at the beginning.
Later, when the sea became rough, the migrants "did not have time to ask for help" and could not prevent the boat from crashing against the rocks and breaking in two, hit by the force of the waves.
Some of the 80 survivors -21 were transferred to different hospitals in the area- reached the coast by their own means.
Just like the pieces of the ship, shattered from the impact.
"They are alive by a miracle," said a spokesman for the Red Cross.
Among them is a Turkish citizen, whom the police accuse of human trafficking and of being responsible for the deadly trip.
The documentation of at least one other person who accompanied him at work was also found, but his body has not been found.
#naufragio #Crotone
Non ci sono casi da ustioni tra i sopravvissuti il che escluderebbe un'explosione.
Probably the imbarcazione has hit one scoglio.
The person is dead in water at 150 meters from the river.
— MediciSenzaFrontiere (@MSF_ITALIA) February 26, 2023
The Italian authorities, who are collecting testimonies from survivors to try to clarify how many people were traveling on the boat, fear that the number of fatalities could increase due to bad sea conditions.
Many of the bodies have appeared this Sunday on the beaches near Steccato.
Others have been collected from nearby waters.
In fact, one of the bodies, as reported by MSF, was found in Catanzaro, a very long way from the accident.
The images shared by the local press show the pieces of a completely destroyed wooden boat on the beach.
"When we arrived at the site of the shipwreck, we saw corpses floating everywhere,"
Laura De Paoli, a doctor with the Order of Malta's Italian Relief Corps (CISOM), told the local newspaper
Il Crotonese
, "we rescued two men who were holding a child.
Unfortunately the little one was dead.
the turkish route
The route that connects Turkey with Calabria and Apulia in southern Italy by sea is also long, dangerous and one of the most expensive for migrants, often taking second place behind the routes that cross the Central and Western Mediterranean.
The researchers have been able to verify that it is not an occasional phenomenon and that it has been active for almost a decade, but that it has increased in recent times.
According to Frontex data, some 42,800 people used the so-called Turkish route in 2022. The majority, as in the case of the shipwreck this Sunday, come mainly from war zones such as Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan, and also from Iran, Pakistan and even Nigerian.
Several people attend to the survivors of the sinking of a migrant boat that occurred off the coast of Calabria (southern Italy) this Sunday.
Antonino Durso (AP)
Remains of the boat in which the migrants were traveling on a beach in the Calabrian town of Steccato di Cutro. GIUSEPPE PIPITA (EFE)
A rescue team locates some of the bodies of the migrants killed in the shipwreck.
Some 80 people have survived the tragedy.
It is estimated that between 150 and 200 people were traveling on the boat. STRINGER (REUTERS)
Two migrants cover themselves with blankets on a beach in Steccato di Cutro. GIUSEPPE PIPITA (AP)
Bodies of migrants who died after their boat sank. STRINGER (AFP)
Emergency teams with the surviving migrants of the shipwreck. GIUSEPPE PIPITA (EFE)
Remains of the boat on a beach in Steccato di Cutro. GIUSEPPE PIPITA (AP)
Rescue personnel recover a body of a migrant on a beach in Steccato di Cutro.
GIUSEPPE PIPITA (AP)
Emergency service personnel help the survivors. GIUSEPPE PIPITA (EFE)
Remains of the boat on a beach in the town of Steccato di Cutro, in the extreme south of the country. STRINGER (REUTERS)
A group of immigrants who have survived this Sunday's shipwreck off the Calabrian coast take shelter with blankets.
Antonino Durso (AP)
Rescue personnel transfer the body of a migrant on the beach. Giuseppe Pipita (AP)
Several Italian prosecutors, including Calabria, alerted by the phenomenon, have launched investigations.
They have detected that the crossing is made not only with battered barges (like the one this Sunday), but very often with sailboats, considered safer and less visible.
Trafficking is managed by Turkish gangs, some even have criminal groups permanently present in Calabria, but human traffickers almost always come from Russia and Ukraine.
Last November, a sailing ship arrived in Sicily with 99 Afghans and Pakistanis on board.
The skippers were of Russian nationality, but the ship had a Ukrainian flag.
Many of the migrants who choose this route stop over in Greece and then continue their exodus through the Balkans.
In this case it was not so.
A European border agency (Frontex) plane patrolling the area sighted the barge on Saturday afternoon about 40 miles off the Italian coast.
There was no NGO in that area.
There are not usually any, but in addition, the latest decrees of the Government of Giorgia Meloni -impose strong sanctions, do not allow multiple rescues and assign ports that are far away from the place of the shipwreck- have made their work in the Mediterranean very difficult.
Two rescue teams from Calabria and Apulia went to sea.
But the terrible weather conditions prevented them from reaching the area and they had to return to port.
When they were finally able to reach the area,
Meloni against the traffickers
The tragedy, which already brings the number of deaths in the Mediterranean in ten years to 26,000, will deeply mark the political debate on immigration in Italy, almost always turned into a trench for the war between the right and the left.
Prime Minister Meloni has expressed this Sunday her "deep regret" for her shipwreck and she has promised to stop irregular maritime migration to avoid more tragedies.
"The Government is committed to preventing departures [of migrants] and with them these tragedies, and we will continue to do so," she reads in the note published by the Executive.
Meloni has pointed out that in the first place she will demand "the maximum collaboration of the countries of origin and departure [of the migrants]."
The leader of the 5 Star Movement and former Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, has claimed the responsibility of the European partners: “The Mediterranean continues to be stained with blood.
Now we have to put aside the slogans and make Europe really present, supportive and united in the management and control of migratory flows.
We owe it to ourselves, to our values, to the hope that was in the eyes of those who have found death today”.
Criticism of the European Union
For his part, the president of the Calabria region, Roberto Occhiuto, has criticized the community migration policy.
“What has the EU done in all these years?
Where is the Europe that is supposed to guarantee security and legality?
What has happened to the dialogue operations with the countries of origin of the migrants?
All questions that, unfortunately, today have no answer, ”he denounced.
The president of the republic, Sergio Mattarella, has also called for the intervention of the EU.
“It is essential that the European Union finally assume the specific responsibility of governing the migratory phenomenon in order to wrest it from the traffickers of human beings, committing itself directly to migratory policies and supporting cooperation for the development of the countries from which young people are seen. forced to leave due to lack of prospects”.
The European Union, despite multiple attempts, has not been able to find a formula to stop irregular immigration in its territory.
The migration pact that the European Commission launched in 2020 is practically at a standstill due to the profound differences between community partners.
The disparities have worsened with the arrival of some governments of the extreme right, as in the case of Italy, where Giorgia Meloni applies a strong hand in immigration matters, and has even clashed directly with countries like France.
In a minimum agreement, European leaders decided at the beginning of this month to mobilize "substantial European funds" to reinforce the borders of the Member States most affected by migratory flows,
The Pope, during the Angelus prayer this Sunday, referred to the tragedy.
"This morning I learned with pain of the shipwreck that occurred on the Calabrian coast, near Crotone," said the pontiff.
"I pray for each one of them, for the disappeared, for the other migrants who have survived," continued Francisco, who thanked the work of the emergency services.
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