More than 1,200 migrants have been rescued by the Italian coastguard in 24 hours from the Ionian Sea off the coast of Calabria. The rescue operations were hampered by bad weather conditions. The operations at sea were coordinated by the ship “Dattilo”. The Coast Guard assisted three refugee ships. Other fishing boats with hundreds of people on board are still at sea, the NGO Alarm Phone reports.
Two ships with a total of more than 1,000 migrants on board arrived in Calabria on Saturday. The number of migrant arrivals in southern Italy has risen to more than 18,800 since the beginning of the year. In the same period in 2021 and 2022, there were about 6,000, according to the Ministry of the Interior in Rome.
Coast Guard came too late to help: 76 migrants dead
The Coast Guard was recently criticized for initially not helping a boat carrying more than 150 migrants at the end of February. The wooden boat capsized off the coast of Calabria, killing at least 76 people. The authorities and government in Rome explained that they did not initially assume an emergency on the night of the accident. Three bodies of the people who died in the shipwreck were recovered on Saturday. The bodies are two children and an adult. The number of victims has now risen to 76. More people are still missing – about 80 people survived the accident.
Demonstration on the beach where bodies washed up
Nearly two weeks after the devastating boat accident, thousands of people demonstrated against death in the Mediterranean. Some 5,000 demonstrators took part in a procession on Saturday through the Calabrian town of Steccato di Cutro, where the accident took place. The demonstration ended with a minute’s silence on the city’s beach, where the bodies washed ashore. The demonstrators carried a wooden cross built from parts of the shipwreck. The cross was carried by several participants. Some relatives of the victims also took part in the demonstration.
Source: Krone
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