IThe Government launches the crackdown on irregular arrivals with the Cutro decreebut it is boom of departures to Italy: about 4,600 in 48 hours. And the sea rescue machine moved with an impressive deployment of forces to save three overloaded boats – with over 1,300 people on board – in the Ionian Sea. A Navy ship also intervened, called by the Coast Guard given the too many people to secure.
A total of five patrol boats, three ships and an airplane were activated: in fact, other tragedies are not admissible while the controversies still rage over the failure to intervene on the caique which broke up a few meters from the Calabrian coast causing 73 victims. We are heading towards spring – and weather conditions more favorable for travel – with numbers that worry the Interior Ministry: arrivals in 2023 are already at 17,500, 194% more than last year.
AND the rescue operation off the coast of Calabria is still underway of boats with a thousand people on board. The three events, informs the Coast Guard, see the intervention of various aeronautical vessels operating under the coordination of the Italian Coast Guard. In particular, the Dattilo ship of the Coast Guard is coordinating the naval complex in the area made up of 6 Sar patrol boats of the Corps, 2 patrol boats of the Guardia di Finanza and a ship of the Navy. In support of the activities at sea, an ATR 42 aircraft of the Italian Coast Guard and an Icelandic Frontex aircraft were flying over.
Also Frontex data record the surge in flows in the central Mediterranean: +116%. The Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, after his visits to Tunisia, Libya and Turkey, is also planning visits to the Ivory Coast in the coming weeks (it is the country of origin of the largest number of migrants this year, 2,383) and Egypt, to sensitize both to oppose departures. There is the Central Mediterranean route, essentially from Libya to Tunisia, which continues to be crossed by dozens and dozens of small boats. Yesterday 41 arrived in Lampedusa, a record. And as of midnight today, here are 22 more.
Shipwreck Cutro, the funeral of seven victims in Bologna
Between yesterday and today 2,900 people, in total. Tragedy was also risked with a small boat with 42 on board wrecked in Italian sar waters: the passengers were rescued first by a Tunisian fishing boat and then by the Italian Coast Guard. The hotspot on the island is packed, with over three thousand guests for a capacity of 400 seats. The Diciotti ship of the Coast Guard, just as it was carrying 180 people taken from Lampedusa, rescued over 480 migrants: they will arrive in Reggio Calabria tomorrow morning. The Interior Ministry is committed to emptying the center with a series of transfers to the mainland.
Another thousand were brought back by the Tunisian Coast Guard. Most are native to sub-Saharan Africa. A country already in a severe economic crisis, Tunisia is struggling to contain the hundreds of thousands of immigrants present on its territory to attempt the crossing to Europe.
However, the eastern route is also growing, the one that starts from Turkey, where the Cutro boat came from. Eagle 1, the same aircraft from Frontex’ joint operation Themis that first signaled its position to the Italian authorities, today spotted the three overloaded boats in the Ionian Sea. One with about 500 on board 70 miles south of Crotone; the other two, with a total of about 800 passengers, 100 miles southeast of Roccella Ionica. In the evening the Italian vehicles arrived on site and started the transhipment operations, made “particularly complex – explains the Coast Guard – due to the large number of people present on the drifting boats”. And it is precisely the massive arrivals, concentrated in a short time, that put both the sea rescue system and the reception system in difficulty. With hundreds of boats – many adrift – scattered from the Sicilian Channel to the Ionian Sea, organizing rescues is not easy.
And so on a field day like today, the Coast Guard – responsible for Sar operations – asked for the support of the Navy, which sent the ship Sirio towards the Ionian Sea “at maximum speed” – the Ministry of Defense reports , 90m offshore patrol vessel.
“The Ministry of Defense is giving all possible support to the Viminale through the Navy and the Air Force to address the dramatic situation underway in Lampedusa and in the open sea, in the Sicilian channel”, said Defense Minister Guido in a tweet. Crosetti.
An article was included in a draft of the decree approved yesterday in Cutro which assigned an important role to the Navy for the enhancement of maritime surveillance. In particular, emphasis was placed on the ‘Integrated inter-ministerial maritime surveillance device’, set up at the Chief Command of the naval squadron at the Navy headquarters in Santa Rosa (Rome). A room that can draw on the information provided by radars and vehicles throughout the Mediterranean. The article was then canceled as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni explained yesterday. But it is the signal that the Government is still reflecting on the organization of interventions and the coordination of the various forces operating at sea. Also in view of the warm season, which promises to be complicated on the landing front.
The president of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, issued the Decree law containing “Urgent provisions on the legal entry flows of foreign workers and the prevention and fight against irregular immigration.” and authorized the presentation to the Houses of the related conversion bill. This was learned at the Quirinale.
ANSA Agency
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