Frontex alerted the Italian authorities on Saturday afternoon to the presence in the Mediterranean of the boat with migrants that sank early Sunday morning a few meters from the coast, killing at least 64 people, police announced Tuesday.
The patrol of the European Coast and Border Guard Agency (Frontex), which was traveling on a plane, sent the message to the national contact point of the Italian security forces and to the Coast Guard Operations Center, on a boat that “it navigated without problems”. , at six knots [de velocidade]with good buoyancy and only one person visible on deck”.
The Italian Coast Guard reported that, after being alerted, it communicated with another vessel that was in the vicinity of the point referenced by the Frontex patrol to proceed with the “interception of the vessel.”
However, several hours passed without the vessel being detected, according to the report released by the Italian authorities.
According to the same report, starting at 04:30 local time (03:30 Lisbon time), the Italian coastal authorities began receiving phone calls from “people on land” who “alert about the existence of a vessel in distress a few meters from the coast”, thus beginning the coordination process between the different security forces.
“This is the first emergency information that the Coast Guard receives in relation to the ship sighted by the Frontex plane,” explained the security body, which took the opportunity to clarify that none of the calls came from the ship in danger.
Then, the ‘Carabinieri’ (Italian military police), previously alerted by the Coast Guard, arrived in the area and reported the sinking.
From that moment on, the different security agencies activated the emergency device under the coordination of the Coast Guard of the Calabria Region “with the dispatch of naval and air resources, men and land resources to the indicated area”.
But the efforts were in vain as the ship was destroyed after hitting rocks off the coast of Steccato di Cutro. So far, 82 survivors have been rescued and 64 bodies have been located, although the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has indicated to the Spanish agency EFE that the death toll could exceed one hundred.
The ship, which left the Turkish coast four days earlier, was carrying some 200 migrants from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Syria.
Regarding the actions of the Italian emergency services, the Italian Interior Minister, Matteo Piantedosi, stated that the Senate “has no reason to believe that there have been errors or omissions, or even that the situation has been underestimated”, although it has promised an investigation into the incident.
Piantedosi added, on the other hand, that the Italian government is considering creating more centers for the repatriation of migrants.
“Creating detention centers for repatriations is very expensive, but we consider that it is on the agenda,” said the Italian official at a hearing before the Constitutional Affairs Commission on the ministry’s program lines.
“The discourse of expulsions is the closing of the circle of irregular migratory flows. In this sense, we not only take into account the logistics of support, but also the contacts with the countries of origin of these flows ”, he concluded.
At least four people were arrested for their alleged responsibility in the trafficking of these migrants. The central Mediterranean routes have caused more than 20,500 deaths since 2014, including 284 since last January, according to data from the International Organization for Migration.
On Monday, the organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) described the statements by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Piantedosi as a “slap” to the migrants, insinuating that they were responsible for their own tragedy, for undertaking such a dangerous journey.
Source: TSF
