CATANIA. “It’s her, it’s my daughter.” The desperate mother who the other day on the Favaloro pier in Lampedusa was looking for her fifteen-year-old daughter, found her this morning: she is among the seven dead recovered together with the 46 castaways. The girl is in one of the seven coffins that arrived in Sicily last night by ferry from the island and will be buried in the cemetery of Porto Empedocle. He is therefore among the dead of that dramatic night between 29 and 30 June, 7 miles west of Lampedusa, where the Italian Coast Guard patrol boats had arrived to rescue their damaged boat. But the excitement on board had caused the boat to overturn and everyone had fallen into the water, in the darkness of the night that was about to end.
The rescuers had done everything to save those on that boat, one of the many that that night and then again the following morning, crossed the Sicilian channel from Tunisia. But it had not been possible to save everyone. Even today the bodies of the missing are still searched at sea, it seems a dozen, to no avail. That of the 15-year-old girl was not the only body recognized among the 7 corpses, all of women, recovered: a man was able to recognize his wife, another woman his sister-in-law. For the other four dead women, the blood and DNA sampling ordered that same day by the Agrigento prosecutor’s office – which opened an investigation into shipwreck and aiding illegal immigration – will help to give them an identity also at a later time. . At sea there are still boats of migrants trying to reach the Italian or Maltese coasts. Until yesterday there have been landings in Lampedusa, whose hotspot is gradually being emptied with transfers of migrants or on quarantine ships or in Sicily with scheduled ferries. A Save the Children team met the minors who survived the shipwreck in Lampedusa: “They said that at one point the boat they had been traveling in for a while, on which there were several pregnant women and very young children, was is upside down and they found themselves in the water – said the spokeswoman Giovanna Di Benedetto -. They started drinking, they went under water, they feared drowning and then they saw many people die around them. Terrible images for anyone, let alone for two children, who traveled alone, without any dear figure ».
Yesterday afternoon the Ocean Viking, the ship of the NGO Sos Mediterranée, the only rescue ship currently operating in the central Mediterranean, completed the rescue of 44 people who were on two different boats, adrift for two days, in the Sar area of Malta. Among them there are 15 minors, 5 women, one of whom is pregnant, and two disabled people. “During the first rescue – said Sos Mediterranée – a Libyan patrol boat approached the small boat, complicating the rescue operation”. Libya today made it known that it had ordered an internal investigation by the Navy to ascertain responsibility for what happened two days ago in the SAR area of Malta, when a Libyan patrol boat chased for tens of miles, shooting and even attempting ramming. a boat of migrants, going as far as the Maltese Sar area, just about forty miles south of Lampedusa. The episode became public, unlike others that happened in the past in the silence of the institutions, thanks to the images taken by the Seabird reconnaissance plane of the German NGO Sea Watch, which then spread them on social networks.
In a note, the Libyan Navy said today that what happened, if ascertained, endangered the lives of migrants, as well as those of the crew members of the patrol boat itself, as security measures were not followed and warning shots were also used This action shows the lack of proper behavior if it turns out to be true after the verifications. The Coast Guard condemns any behavior contrary to local and international laws and confirms that all legal measures will be taken against any violation, in accordance with the legislation and laws in force ». The dramatic video also arrived at the European Commission building in Brussels: “We are currently verifying the facts and circumstances related to that incident and of course we are worried – said Commission spokesman Peter Stano -. We will ask Libyan partners for explanations as part of our regular contacts, we are monitoring the circumstances behind this event. We will certainly follow this very closely and conduct investigations ».
And from Tunisia, news of another tragic shipwreck. On the night between Wednesday and Thursday, the Tunis Coast Guard recovered the bodies of 8 migrants who were on a sunken boat off the coast of Sfax; another 13 people were rescued and sea searches continue. The occupants of another boat, 33 once again sub-Saharanians, were all recovered before their boat sank.