Italy begins the rescue of three ships with more than a thousand migrants near its coasts

A wooden barge during a rescue operation off the Libyan coast, on March 29, 2022. Yannis Behrakis (Reuters)

The Italian Coast Guard has launched this Friday the rescue of three boats with more than a thousand migrants on board in an area between Sicily and Calabria.

In one of them, at least 500 migrants, including many children, travel overcrowded and have asked for help when water enters the fishing boat in which they are trying to reach the Italian coast.

The Alarm Phone service, a private switchboard that handles distress calls from migrant boats, sent an alert mid-morning on Friday due to the high number of people on board.

Some of the passengers on the boat explained that they had left Libya and that the situation was complicated at sea.

“We have alerted the competent authorities.

Do not waste time, immediately send rescue teams ”, the telephone service has indicated on its social networks.

The Italian authorities have confirmed that there are "numerous rescues in progress" that affect "more than 1,000 immigrants in danger", since two other boats have been sighted.

The rescues, in the area of ​​Italian competence, are being particularly "complex" due to the high number of occupants of the drifting boats, say the authorities.

According to the Italian media, the fishing boat that managed to alert by telephone of its situation was already located by a plane from the European border agency, Frontex, the same one that had also sighted and alerted on February 25 about the barge that later sank a few meters from the Calabrian coast, an event in which 73 people ultimately died.

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points out that a US Navy helicopter has also sighted the vessel and has reported that it possibly left the coast of the Cyrenaica region (Libya) and, based on its last known position, surveyed around 9:00 a.m. (same time). in mainland Spain), heads towards the eastern coast of Sicily in the direction of Syracuse.

The head of mission of the NGO Mediterranea, Luca Casarini, warned that "this is a dangerous situation" and also called for the immediate intervention of the Italian Coast Guard.

The calls for rapid intervention come after criticism in recent days of the Italian government's actions after the shipwreck off the coast of Calabria.

Precisely this Friday, the firefighters reported that they had just recovered the lifeless body of a child from the water, the last victim so far.

The Crotona Prosecutor's Office has opened an investigation to clarify the possibility that there had been delays in the February rescue by the Coast Guard and Finance Guard.

A group of some 40 Italian and European civil society associations, including Doctors Without Borders, have filed a collective complaint with the same Prosecutor's Office to clarify all the obscure points about what happened.

“Faced with such a high number of deaths and who knows how many disappeared, there needs to be clarity.

There can be no gray areas about eventual responsibilities in the rescue machinery," the organizations have pointed out.

The Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, defended this Thursday the official management, highly questioned in recent days, at a press conference.

"Do any of you consider that the Italian authorities have not done something that they could have done?" He went on to discuss far-right politics.

And she defended that Frontex issued an alert on that occasion of the "arrival of irregular immigrants", and did not warn at any time of "danger of shipwreck".

Meanwhile, more than 3,000 migrants remain crammed into the Lampedusa reception center, with a capacity of 300 places, after the wave of landings in recent days.

On Thursday alone, 1,869 people arrived on the small Italian island.

Since the beginning of the year and until this Friday, about 18,000 migrants have arrived on the Italian shores, compared to 6,000 in the same period of 2022, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior.

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