Gavino Maciocco
Massacre of migrants in Crotone: 70 dead, about 40 missing. They came from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria and Somalia. The message from the Meloni government: Don’t leave, because no one will come to help you. The competent words of Admiral Alessandro. The revealing sentence of Minister Piantedosi.
On Saturday 25 February, at approximately 10.30 pm, the Eagle1 aircraft of Frontex – the European agency that helps Member States with border control – reports that it has sighted a boat 40 miles from the Calabrian coast. Frontex reports that the boat is traveling at six knots in good buoyancy conditions, with only one person visible on deck,
but thermal photography shows that the belly of the ship is warm, therefore full of people. He also reports that there is someone on board who has a Turkish cell phone, an indication that it is a boat operated by smugglers.
From Rome it was decided to go out to sea not the class 300 Coast Guard patrol boats, unsinkable, capable of facing the worst weather conditions, but two vehicles of the Guardia di Finanza to carry out a “maritime police” operation. At half past midnight, two naval units, a fast patrol boat and a patrol boat, go out to sea. Due to adverse weather conditions, navigation becomes dangerous for the men of the yellow flames. They fail to find the target and return to port. Nobody sends a helicopter or a plane to see where that wooden boat full of desperate people has gone.
At 3.40 the provincial command of the Guardia di Finanza of Vibo Valentia informs the Coast Guard of what happened, asking them to employ naval units to intervene, “without having any response”.
At 4 in the morning on Sunday 26 February, a dramatic and difficult to understand phone call in English, with desperate women’s voices, arrives at the police operations center in Crotone from an international number. The operator locates the call and warns the patrol to reach Steccato di Cutro immediately. At 4.30 they are on site and begin to collect corpses and rescue the survivors. The toll of the tragedy is one of the most serious recorded in the Mediterranean: 70 dead including 16 minors (14 of these have not yet been identified) plus an unknown number of missing (around 40), with 79 migrants saved. The boat left from Smyrna (Turkey) and the main countries of origin of the migrants are Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria and Somalia.
Although the responsibility of the Coast Guard lies with the Minister of Transport, Matteo Salvini, the Government on the matter speaks for the voice of the interior minister, Matteo Piantedosiwho expressed a position that will be supported by the entire majority (and by President Meloni himself, returning from the mission in India): “Rescue operations did not start because Frontex did not warn us about the risk of shipwreck”. Frontex pointed out that they provide the information useful for identifying a vessel, but that it is the governments interested in deciding on the methods of intervention. And in this case the Italian government has decided to send the Guardia di Finanza to a maritime police activity and not the Coast Guard for a rescue activity.
The credibility, even better humanity, of the Meloni government is at stake on this point. The Crotone judiciary has opened a file, but a long time is expected. In the meantime, the political and also the technical debate has flared up. In this regard, Admiral Vittorio Alessandro spoke to the press (Gedi) and to the radio (Rai 1, Menabò), former spokesman of the General Command of the Port Authorities, now retired. Once upon a time for the Coast Guard – essentially says the admiral – it was a source of pride to save people at sea and it was automatic that in the face of a dangerous situation the Coast Guard would mobilize to bring relief. Today that is no longer the case. The political climate has changed. The rules of engagement are complex and are influenced by politics. Furthermore, a dangerous vice has crept into the culture of the sea: if a boat floats, it is defined as not in danger. And in the specific case of Crotone – claims Vittorio Alessandro – the boat reported by Frontex was floating and moving but, despite this, there were clear signs of risk of shipwreck (see also video in Gedi), Indeed:
- The boat was full of people,
- There was the presence of smugglers,
- The route was that of immigration,
- The sea was terrible, such as to make the lookouts of the Finance Police return to port,
- The boat was headed towards the coast, but not towards a safe port: with that stormy sea, the impact with a beach or rocks could be lethal (as it was).
In the radio interview the admiral added this comment:
Sending the Guardia di Finanza, instead of the Coast Guard, to a shipwreck situation is like sending the police to search for arsonists, instead of firefighters, in the event of a fire.
On the occasion, Minister Piantedosi reiterated the Italian government’s commitment to hindering the departures of migrants from the coasts bordering the Mediterranean, adding that «desperation can never justify travel conditions that endanger the lives of one’s children ».
«If Piantedosi’s logic were valid– objected Chiara Saraceno, in an article in Repubblica – according to which there is no intolerable situation that justifies putting one’s life at risk, not only should one never run away from intolerable situations, but one should never rebel. Reckless and imprudent are, in this logic, also Iranian women who for months have been challenging, with the concrete risk of being imprisoned and/or killed, a regime that not only wants them veiled and submissive, but, it turns out, poisons schoolgirls to have an excuse to close their schools. Or the Afghans who refuse to be pushed back into ignorance and subordination to males. Or the Ukrainians, who persist in defending themselves against the Russian invasion, even with our help, despite the fact that this is costing thousands of lives. Unless you think that the right to a dignified life and freedom is worth more to some than to othersjust as there are migrants “out of desperation” more or less deserving of welcome depending on the country of origin: the Ukrainians yes, the Afghans, the Syrians, the Pakistanis, the Nigerians no».
«I’ll tell him tomorrow what you did – wrote on his Facebook profile Enrico Galiano, professor of Pordenone and well-known writer -. I will enter the classroom and read the minister’s statements to my students who said: “I wouldn’t leave if I were desperate because I was brought up to be responsible”. I’m going to read them and sit there and listen to what they have to say. They are twelve years old, my students. And it is right that they know.
They will see for themselves that you have arrested those who wanted to save people. That you have written and said horrendous things, that your soul is dirty with words that no one can erase.
I’ll tell them you forced into port the ships that could have saved them.
I’ll tell you, you’ve been using people’s lives for years to get four more votes.
I’ll tell him what you did.
What did we do, actually. Because we are all responsible. I’ll tell you the ones that were before weren’t that different, they just knew how to hide it better.
And send me the Digos, send whoever you want, take away my professorship, my class.
In the end, that’s all you know how to do: use force against the weakest. Don’t even try with the really strong ones.
Suspend me as well: I want to be able to tell my daughter, when she grows up and sees what was happening these days, these years, when she asks me where I was, I want the pride of being able to answer her, head held high: on the other side».
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The migration policies of the Meloni government end in a single, sterile, vain objective: that of blocking departures from the countries of origin. Just as sterile, and moreover offensive, is Minister Piantedosi’s warning not to leave out of a sense of responsibility towards one’s children. History tells us that migrations will continue, especially if they are “forced”, that is, caused by intolerable living conditions that push people to flee their land. The solution is to make migrations legal (impossible in Italy today with the current Bossi-Fini law), to use for everyone the dignified welcome that has been reserved for Ukrainian refugees. Europe needs it, many of its countries absolutely need it, such as Italy in the midst of demographic winter.
In the meantime, immediately change the rules of engagement of the Coast Guard so that tragedies like that of Steccato di Cutro do not repeat themselves.