They will arrive in Catania between night and dawn tomorrow approximately 700 migrants who are on a fishing boat rescued by the Coast Guard off the coast of Sicily. The vessel, towed by the ship ‘Peluso’ and escorted by two patrol boats, sails slowly. Another 108 migrants, who were on the same boat, were transferred onto a patrol boat, the CP331, which had already landed them in the port of the capital of Etna. The Sicilian Region, through its Civil Protection, has had two marquees built in the former vaccination hub in via Forcile, in the San Giuseppe La Rena district of Catania.
The national state of emergency
The declaration of a national state of emergency on immigration should arrive at the Council of Ministers this afternoon. The decision, according to what ANSA learns, would have matured after a meeting that took place yesterday between the ministers of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, and of Civil Protection and the Sea, Nello Musumeci.
Musumeci, the islands alone cannot deal with the situation
“Should we declare a state of emergency on immigration today? It is a very probable hypothesis. Yesterday I spoke with my colleague from the Piantedosi Interior, there is a condition of absolute emergency. It is not a new fact, I myself had launched the alarm weeks ago. It is a problem that is destined not to end for at least the next ten years. A condition that puts the structures of the State in pain and is inevitable because we are talking about human beings who have rights and towards whom we must have a responsible approach. The state of emergency should facilitate procedures. We are talking about a phenomenon never known in the past. The islands alone cannot deal with this condition of emergency”. The Minister for Civil Protection and Marine Policies Nello Musumeci said on Radio Anch’io
All the regions are unable to respond to the waves of landings of migrants, for this reason the state of emergency will be national”. This is what the Minister for Civil Protection and Marine Policies, Nello Musumeci, specified in Baia with journalists. “We need to help the Regions – he continued – because there is a risk of collapsing the system with this landing rate”. For Musumeci it is desirable that “Europe realizes that we do not have much time available. And if we intervene from the country from which they move by neutralizing the smugglers’ mafia, perhaps we will be able to avoid the worst”.
Rescued again
“Relief operations are still underway in the Ionian Sea”. The Coast Guard writes it on twitter about the two boats – one with 800 and the other with 400 migrants on board – intercepted yesterday over a hundred miles southeast of Sicily. “Due to the prohibitive sea conditions – continues the Coast Guard – the Peluso vessel, the Diciotti vessel and the Coast Guard patrol boats escort the two units with the migrants on board”.
During the weekend I resumed the landings and shipwrecks
Tragic Easter weekend in the waters of the Mediterranean, where reports of damaged boats and migrants seeking help intensified, with a crescendo of rescuers’ activity which from Friday to Monday allowed about 2,000 people to be rescued another 1,200 migrants have joined for whom rescue operations are still underway in the Ionian Sea between Sicily and Calabria. Thirty-eight are instead the victims of two shipwrecks, one off the coast of Tunisia and the other in Maltese waters, and 18 are missing. Just the two rescues on Easter Monday were the most complex, since they involved about one thousand and two hundred people. The Coast Guard intervened to rescue two large boats: a fishing boat with 800 migrants on board, located over 120 miles south-east of Syracuse, and another vessel with 400 on board in the Italian Sar area 170 miles south- East of Capo Passero, reported by Alarm Phone which had raised the alarm since Easter day. The rescue operations south-east of Syracuse were coordinated by Nave Peluso with the support of three Sar class 300 patrol boats and the assistance of a merchant ship present in the area; the intervention southeast of Capo Passero was instead managed by Nave Diciotti with the help of two merchant vessels for assistance. In support of the search and rescue operations of these days, aircraft from the Coast Guard and Frontex are also participating.