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Shipwreck reconstruction: how Italy and Frontex were able to prevent the deaths of more than 90 people in Cutro

2023-06-02T10:42:01.283Z

Highlights: A wooden boat carrying some 200 migrants capsized 40 metres off the Italian coast. The various bodies failed to detect the risk and did not activate a rescue operation in time. An investigation by EL PAÍS, together with Lighhtouse Reports, reconstructs the tragedy and reveals the fatal chain of errors. At least 94 people were killed, including 35 children. The boat – caught in a storm when arriving in Italy and overloaded from the beginning – had been detected by the Eagle 1, a plane operated by the European border agency (Frontex)


On 26 February, a boat carrying some 200 migrants capsized 40 metres off the Italian coast. The various bodies failed to detect the risk and did not activate a rescue operation in time. An investigation by EL PAÍS, together with Lighhtouse Reports, reconstructs the tragedy and reveals the fatal chain of errors


In the early hours of February 26, at about five in the morning and after almost four days and four nights of crossing from Turkey, a wooden boat capsized near the coast of Cutro, in southeastern Italy. On board the old shell were almost 200 people, mostly refugees from Afghanistan who had paid up to 9,000 euros to try to reach Europe. About 40 meters from the beach, the strong waves staggered the boat, whose hull hit a sandbar and broke into several pieces. At least 94 people were killed, including 35 children. This Thursday the Prosecutor's Office of Crotone (Calabria) ordered the search of the headquarters of the two bodies that intervened in the operation (Coast Guard and Finance Guard) and ordered the first charges for negligence in the rescue tasks.

The Summer Love – as the old pleasure boat was called – did not arrive by surprise to the Italian coast. The ship was on the radars of Italian and European authorities hours before the shipwreck. The boat – caught in a storm when arriving in Italy and overloaded from the beginning – had been detected by the Eagle 1, a plane operated by the European border agency (Frontex), almost six hours before the shipwreck: the first of these characteristics and dimensions since the tragedy in Lampedusa in 2013, where 368 people died. But the Italian authorities, in the decisive hours, looked the other way and began to blame each other between different bodies or to pass the ball to Frontex. Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni only travelled to the site of the tragedy after 11 days.

The key to this case, in addition to the chain of errors that occurred and the origin of the short circuit that prevented avoiding the tragedy, is the resistance of the Italian authorities to activate a search and rescue operation, despite the fact that there were multiple indications to do so. The Italian Coast Guard did not act until the boat had already been torn to pieces and dozens of people drowned a few tens of meters from the Calabrian beach. On March 4, six days after the shipwreck, from Abu Dhabi, Meloni charged against the European Coast and Border Guard Agency. "Frontex did not issue any emergency statement," he defended. "Do any of you think that the Italian government could have saved the lives of 60 people and did not?" the Italian prime minister asked.

Three months after the event, a joint investigation by EL PAÍS with Lighthouse Reports, Le Monde, Sky News, Domani and the Süddeutsche Zeitung, reveals new data that contradicts the Italian Government. The access to confidential documents, the collection of a score of testimonies from survivors and their families and the analysis of exclusive videos show that there were enough elements to consider that the Summer Love, between 20 and 25 meters, sailed overloaded, without life jackets and in the middle of the storm, information that should have activated a rescue operation. But Italian and European shipping agents did not do enough to prevent the deaths of nearly 100 people.

Confidential report from Frontex on the air mission that located the 'Summer Love'.

A confidential Frontex document, which was not known until now, shows that the ship had "irregularities" that would have required more attention from all the agents responsible. It is the 30-page report of the air mission of an agency plane that patrolled the day before the shipwreck. Eagle 1 lifted off after five o'clock in the afternoon on February 25 for a surveillance mission. Since its creation in 2004, the European agency has supported national coastguards and security forces to monitor their borders. The deployment of satellites, drones and aircraft in the Mediterranean makes it difficult for any ship to escape its control. So it was with Summer Love. The plane's satellite phone detection system did pick up several signals coming from the craft. Apparently, one of the organizers of the trip was trying to contact Turkey. "This irregularity caught our attention," reports a Frontex spokesman.

Hidden under the deck

The Summer Love's voyage began on February 22, 2023, with about 180 people on board. In addition to Afghan refugees, there were Syrians, Pakistanis, Turks and Tunisians, including dozens of children. They had left Istanbul two days earlier, hiding in the back of a truck that took seven hours to reach the Turkish city of Cesme. The group had to walk three hours through a forest to reach a rocky beach, in an isolated place, where a boat was waiting for them. But it wasn't the Summer Love.

The first boat they boarded was a tourist ship, smaller and metal on board which they set course for Italy. Three hours later, the engine broke down and water began to come in. "Oil was dripping on my head and the boat was too small. We were lucky that the sea was calm," recalls Nigeena Mamozai, a 22-year-old Afghan woman who lost her husband in the shipwreck four days later.

The occupants had to wait another three hours until they were picked up by a white and blue boat. The Summer Love was the classic wooden schooner used by tourists to navigate the Aegean Sea, larger and with the capacity to transport about 20 people. But also older, fragile and slower than the first boat, according to the testimonies of survivors collected by Italian justice. Someone had taken away the two masts. And in the same way as the previous one, their engine did not work properly and they had to make dozens of stops during the crossing, some survivors now recount.

In the four days that the voyage lasted, most of the passengers were forced by the traffickers to remain hidden in the cabins below deck to avoid being located by surveillance patrols. Witnesses have described a very tense atmosphere. They speak of days without food and without enough water. Some of them clashed with organizers because they were forbidden to call relatives or smoke on deck. In some videos provided by the survivors, however, some moments of joy can be seen as the ship approached the Italian coast.

An "unusual" number of people

According to the confidential report of the Frontex aerial surveillance mission, to which this investigation has had access, the Eagle 1 locates the Summer Love at 22.26 and qualifies it as a "suspicious target". From the air, only one person could be seen on board, but the agency reports from the beginning, contrary to what the Italian government has defended, that this was a "possible migrant boat". The aircraft also reports "a significant thermal response," suggesting the presence of a large number of people on board. The agency itself, in response to questions from this investigation, assumes that another of the "irregularities" that caught the attention of the ship was "the detection of an unusual number of people below deck."

The aerial recording could be followed in real time from the agency's headquarters in Warsaw, where in addition to Frontex analysts Italian agents are stationed.

Aerial images taken by the Frontex aircraft on 25 February showing the "significant" thermal response.

The agency sent that report to a long list of emails, including Italy's maritime coordination centers and their managers. He did so at 23.39pm, almost five hours before the shipwreck. In an earlier communication, which was echoed by the Italian media at the time, Frontex recorded in writing that the buoyancy of the boat was good, but that no life jackets were visible. The document itself, in fact, maintains the possibility that there are more people under the cover.

Rome was also fully aware of the difficult weather conditions the ship might face on its approach to shore. At 21.00, the records of the Guardia de Finanza, the customs police, show how one of their patrol boats on an anti-immigration mission has to change the course of her navigation due to the bad state of the sea. Almost six hours before the shipwreck, the pilot of the Frontex aircraft, in charge of monitoring the Summerlove, also warned his superiors of the violence of the wind, according to the transcripts to which this investigation has had access. As required by the protocol, these communications were also shared with the Italian authorities. Overcrowding, lack of life jackets and bad weather are signs of danger, distress in maritime terminology, according to the own rules of both Frontex and Italy.

Matteo Salvini, Italy's Minister of Infrastructure and Transport and head of the Coast Guard, said, in an interview with EL PAÍS on Thursday, that such a danger did not exist. Frontex, the Coast Guard and all authorities confirmed that they did the possible and the impossible. Frontex had evidently not pointed out imminent risks. If not, the Italian Coast Guard or Navy would have intervened." So was Frontex responsible? "I have read the minutes. I refuse to think that a sailor would not save someone's life if he knows they are in danger. And evidently there was no warning of a danger of death," he insisted.

In the port of Crotone, an hour's sailing hour from the Summer Love, there was an Italian Coast Guard boat with the capacity to intervene. In fact, he had gone out on similar missions at times of greater meteorological difficulty. But the position of the Italian authorities remained to avoid a search and rescue operation.

It was not just a decision based on the laws of the sea or the interpretation of data collected on a stormy night when the waves exceeded two meters. Cutro's case is framed in a political context in which immigration has once again become one of the main electoral and political workhorses in Italy. The tension those days was maximum. Meloni and the far-right coalition he leads, with Matteo Salvini, leader of the League as vice president, promised during the campaign to curb the arrivals by sea of irregular migrants. However, so far this year they have quadrupled. The Executive is trying, on the one hand, to stop these landings. And, on the other, it has made an effort to send a clear message to Brussels warning that the issue must be addressed among all community partners.

In the last 10 years, six different governments and five prime ministers have passed through the Chigi Palace. From the left to the far right. Everything has changed politically. Minus the death toll and the community's failure to reach an agreement. More than 2013,26 migrants have died in the Mediterranean Sea since 000, according to the International Organization for Migration, most trying to reach the coast of Italy. Today, due to the difficulties and bureaucratic obstacles imposed by Italy on NGOs working in the rescue of migrants at sea – the Meloni Executive now imposes ports on these boats completely far from the rescue zone – most NGOs that had a rescue ship in the area have decided to leave the sea.

Italian migration policy is played out in the water. And the authorities' resistance to prioritizing bailouts over control has increased in recent years. From 2019 to the first two months of 2023, 232,660 migrants arrived in Italy by sea in more than 6,356 disembarkations. Of those more than 6,000 cases, only 25% of them triggered a search and rescue operation. The rest, like Cutro's case, was treated as a police action. That percentage contrasts with 2016, the year that broke all records of arrivals, with 181,346 people disembarked. That year, rescue operations accounted for 98% of interventions. "In Europe, many countries are in no hurry when it comes to rescuing boats from migrants in distress," says Professor Maurice Stierl of the University of Osnabrück in Germany, "On the contrary, they take their time, as if to discourage migrants."

Vice Admiral and former Coast Guard spokesman Vittorio Alessandro confirms this change of approach: "Many manifestly dangerous situations are now recorded as migratory events [in which a police operation is activated], whereas before they were identified as rescue situations." Alessandro points out that just because a boat sails with the engines running doesn't mean it doesn't need assistance. "That ship, as photographed and described by the Frontex plane, was heading for ruin because it was overloaded."

Following Frontex's warning, the Finance Guard told the Coast Guard that the discovery of the plane required an investigation, but the Coast Guard decided not to intervene on the grounds that no distress call had been received and that there was no certainty that it was a boat with migrants on board. The indications that it was not a pleasure boat to use were many: multiple satellite phone calls had been made to Turkey, the thermal response identified by Frontex suggested that there were many more people on board and the course of the boat made it clear that it was heading to the coast of Crotone, known both for its dangerousness and for being a regular point of arrival for boats with asylum seekers on board.

Weather conditions also continued to deteriorate. Between 3.20am and 3.33am, almost four hours after Frontex sent its report, two Guardia de Finanza patrol boats, activated to intercept the suspicious vessel, had to return. "Given the difficult weather conditions and the impossibility of proceeding safely, the units returned to their mooring base," reads a report from the corps' regional command. Despite the fact that the patrols themselves had to turn around, the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Center (IMRCC), based in Rome, did not issue any "MAYDAY", an alert message calling for an immediate rescue of the vessel. "As soon as you are forced to turn back due to sailing conditions, you must declare a case of distress," said a senior Italian Coast Guard official who requested anonymity.

Meanwhile, nervousness began to spread on the ship. Some began to see the land and to call relatives and friends who were waiting in other countries for their arrival. Many are already preparing for the landing, they had been promised that they could do it around twelve o'clock at night. At 3.50am, one of the passengers leaves a voice message on the phone of a relative in Germany: "Fortunately we have arrived on the other side of the world, we will call you as soon as we have internet," announced a father, who was traveling with his wife and four children.

Just then, the Summer Love appears for the first time on the radar of the Port Captaincy in Vibo Valentina. And five minutes later, at 3.55, they inform the local police, Catanzaro and Crotone, so that they are prepared to patrol the beaches when the boat loaded with migrants reaches the coast. But tension is growing on the ship. As the Summer Love approaches the beach of Steccato di Cutro amid the heavy surf, more passengers want to call to be rescued.

About 200 meters from shore, the flashing lights of a boat coming from the beach frightened one of the ship's captains. Thinking it was the police, he took a turn to walk away, according to the Italian Interior Ministry. The high-speed change of course took him directly into a sandbar. The weight of the boat dragged some of its occupants to the bottom of the water. Survivors recount falling on top of each other and how water began to flood the cabin. Until the Summerlove broke into several pieces.

It was not until four in the morning of February 26 that a call to 112 alerted of a possible shipwreck just two nautical miles from the coast. The call went into the headquarters of the carabinieri in Crotone. "Help!" was heard in English. The call was cut off and the Coast Guard was unable to regain communication, according to its official report.

"I lost him in the waves"

Nigeena Mamozai , the Afghan woman who lost her husband in the shipwreck, now remembers how after that call, her husband put his phone in his pocket, took off his jacket and snapped, "Now it's time to swim." "With the storm and bad weather, bigger waves started to arrive, which caused us to hit the boat. A huge piece of wood hit my husband, Seyar, on the back of the head. The water separated us. I tried to find him, shouted his name, but received no answer. I lost it in the waves," Mamozai recalls. She wasn't the only one.

Sultan Ahmed Almoki, a six-year-old Syrian boy who died in the shipwreck of the 'Summer Love', in Cutro (Italy), on February 26, in a courtesy image.

Assad Almoulqi, a 22-year-old Syrian, picked up his six-year-old younger brother, Sultan, and jumped into the sea with him as water began to flood the boat. It was the fourth time this young man had tried to reach Europe. "My brother died from hypothermia, not drowning. We spent three hours in the icy water clinging to pieces of wood and after 40 minutes, my brother died. I had planned all the scenarios like swimming with my brother and protecting him, what I didn't expect was that the water would be so cold," recalls Almoulqi at a shelter in Hamburg, Germany. Several survivors have told how many were slipped away by their relatives when they held their hands, how they looked for their babies in the middle of the sea. After a few minutes, there was silence. The Summer Love began to sink and dragged dozens of people with it. Little Sultan was one of the deceased.

The Coast Guard sent two speedboats and a helicopter at 4.14am, almost six hours after Frontex located the boat. The patrol departs from Crotone and takes an hour and 25 minutes to reach the crash site. It was too late.

A senior Coast Guard official who asked to remain anonymous believes the incident was largely due to an error in judgment by his Finance Guard colleagues. The officer also points to the "gray areas" that persist between police operations and maritime rescue operations. A 2005 Italian Interior Ministry decree dictates that any suspicious vessel beyond 24 nautical miles (44 km from shore) must be subject to continued surveillance, but that a rescue operation will only be launched in case of "grave and imminent danger" to the ship's occupants. In the case of Cutro, the senior official affirms: "This vagueness allowed the Guardia de Finanza to say: 'we take charge because it is a police operation', while we should have used the precautionary principle. If there is the slightest, even minimal, probability of shipwreck, the means must be provided to launch a rescue operation." The officer criticizes the "short circuit" that led to the disaster.

Vice-President Salvini disagrees on this point as well. The Minister of Transport goes further and defends that the rules governing rescues should be reviewed to restrict them in the case of migrant boats that have paid their passage to reach Europe irregularly. "It is proven that they are organized trips. A SAR (search and rescue operation) means that I come to the rescue for an unforeseen event. The criminals are the traffickers, not the Coast Guard sailors."

When the wreck had circled the globe, Frontex published some elements of its internal reports, but never mentioned in its communications to the public, for example, that its aircraft had to divert because it was "unable to complete the pattern due to strong winds". Speaking to reporters, the European agency said it had scrupulously respected its mandate: to alert the Italian authorities that they are solely responsible for launching a rescue operation. "If we could have known what was going to happen, of course we would have done everything we could to save these people. We don't play with human life. We did not know that events were going to evolve in this way", defended the new director of the agency, the Dutchman Hans Leitjens, on May 23, 2023 before the European Parliament.

The Finance Guard blamed the tragedy on the Coast Guard for failing to act properly. The latter, for its part, blamed Frontex for not having warned them enough. Neither has wanted to answer questions from this investigation with the argument that the case is in court. All three agencies had equal access to the same information at the same time. All three failed in the rescue.

An investigation with Abbas Azimi, Olivier Bonnel, Sara Creta, Bashar Deeb, Youssef Hassan Holgado, Maud Jullien, Lena Kampf, Kristiana Ludwig, Siobhan Robbins, Jack Sapoch, Simon Sales Prado, Tomas Statius, Dorothee Thiesing and Klaas van Dijken.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-06-02

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