Status: 03/10/2023 10:10 p.m
Almost two weeks ago, a boat carrying 150 migrants capsized off the southern Italian coast, killing 73 people. Now the Italian Coast Guard is moving out to rescue more than 1,000 people on three boats in distress.
The Italian coast guard has deployed several ships to help three boats with a total of more than 1,000 migrants off the southern Italian coast. An aircraft is also used, which is exceptionally complex because of the many people, it said in a statement. A military ship was also involved in the rescue operations.
Strong winds and increasingly rough seas are predicted for the weekend. A boat with 500 people on board had already made emergency calls in the morning.
The Tunisian coast guard also reported that they had picked up more than a thousand migrants off the coast during the night who wanted to make the crossing to Europe. A Coast Guard spokesman said at least 25 crossings to Italy had been thwarted. Two boats had previously sunk off the Tunisian coast and 14 people had died.
At the end of February, 73 people died
On February 26, the Italian coast guard did not initially come to the aid of a boat with more than 150 migrants on board. Police ships had tried in vain to intercept the wooden boat, but could not withstand the rough sea. It capsized off the Calabrian coast, at least 73 people died. According to information from the EU border protection agency Frontex, various authorities had shifted responsibility for the boat back and forth. The Coast Guard would have had seagoing vessels.
According to Frontex, the number of life-threatening crossings in the central Mediterranean has doubled in the first two months of 2023 – to 12,000. The UN Migration Agency estimates that around 300 people died.
Stricter penalties for smugglers
The rescue operations come a day after the Italian government announced tougher penalties for people smugglers. Far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced Thursday after a Council of Ministers meeting that smugglers and backers could face up to 30 years in prison if fatal accidents occur during irregular crossings.
“We wanted to send a symbolic and concrete signal,” Meloni said of the decree. “I want to fight and defeat these people.” Meloni announced that the new catalog of penalties not only affects people smugglers and smugglers caught on Italian territory or in Italian waters, but worldwide.