The Coast Guard explains why the ship Louise Michel is detained in Lampeusa.
After carrying out the first rescue intervention in Libyan waters, lhe ship Louise Michel contravened the order given to reach the port of Trapani, heading instead towards three other boats on which, moreover, under the coordination of the IMRCC (National Maritime Rescue Coordination Center), the means were already directing to rescue of the Italian Coast Guard. This is the reason which, pursuant to the so-called NGO decree, led to the detention of the ship Louise Michel by the Lampedusa maritime authority. The Coast Guard reports it in a statement. Also, the vessel of the NGO Louise Michel financed by Basky his behavior complicated the delicate work of coordinating the rescue operations. This is what the Coast Guard specifies. The NGO ship arrived yesterday in the port of the island with 178 migrants on board, rescued on four different boats (the first event occurred in the Libyan Sar area, the following three in the Maltese Sar area). According to what can still be read in the note, the instructions given to the Louise Michel to head towards Trapani and avoid further rescues, given her small size, were also aimed at preventing the ship from taking on board such a number of people as to jeopardize both her safety than that of the migrant boats to which it would provide assistance. Non-compliance with the provisions – continues the Coast Guard – has also slowed down the arrival of a port of disembarkation for the migrants rescued in the first interventioninitially identified in that of Trapani by the Ministry of the Interior, thus leading to redesign the decision in order to converge the arrival of the NGO, for reasons of security and urgency, in the port of Lampedusa, already solicited by the numerous arrivals of recent migrants.
Furthermore “The constant calls from NGO aircraft overloaded the communication systems of the National Relief Coordination Center, overlapping and duplicating the reports of the already present air assets of the State”. The Coast Guard writes in a note. it was not returned to the flag country, as required by the regulations, but to the Italian Coordination Center, also ending up overloading the Center in particularly intense moments of ongoing relief”.
ANSA agency
Biffoni: ‘One billion could be reached if the overall picture were to get worse’. More widespread reception, focus on unaccompanied minors (ANSA)
Transfers from the Lampedusa hotspot have begun. 180 migrants have left the island and will arrive in Porto Empedocle in the evening. The ship Diciotti, in the early afternoon, will begin the embarkation of another 600 people who will be transferred to Reggio Calabria. There are currently 2,377 guests at the contrada Imbriacola hotspot. A second small boat, carrying 20 Sudanese, Ethiopians and Eritreans, was meanwhile rescued off the island by the Finance Police. The group said it departed from Zawia in Libya and paid $2,000 for the crossing.
At least 29 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa have died off Tunisia due to the sinking of the boat they were on while trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Italy: an official of the Tunisian Forum for Social and Economic Rights informed Reuters. The press agency, which reports the news on his website, does not specify when the tragedy occurred. The Tunisian coastguard rescued 5 people from the boat off the coast of Mahdia, added the NGO official, stating that the migrants had left from the beaches of Sfax. Recovered 10 bodies.
91st victim of the shipwreck in Cutro recovered
Exactly one month after the shipwreck, the sea returned another body. This is the 91st victim of the tragedy that took place on February 26 at Steccato di Cutro. The men of the harbor master’s office and the fire brigade this morning recovered the body in an advanced state of decomposition of a man of the apparent age of 30 years. As arranged by the prefecture of Crotone, the searches will not stop. According to the data collected among the survivors, 10 people who were on board the caique are missing.
Two shipwrecks in the Maltese Sar area
The toll from the two shipwrecks that occurred yesterday in the Maltese Sar area is eight dead and 97 survivors. During the night, the bodies of four people, three men and a woman, were landed in the port of Lampedusa from the CP324 patrol boat of the Coast Guard. Together with the bodies, 49 other survivors, originally from Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Guinea, were also brought down on the Favarolo pier. A few hours earlier, another 4 bodies (3 men and a woman) and two survivors had been landed, both from the Ivory Coast, while the Tunisian fishing boat Montacer had transferred 46 people (19 women and 9 minors) rescued after the the 7-metre punt on which they were traveling capsized.