A ship with 47 migrants on board has sunk and it is feared that it has caused dozens of deaths, despite the fact that the Italian authorities had been informed of its location since Saturday night, he assured today alarm phonea network of activists who receive calls from barges in distress in the Central Mediterranean.
“We are shocked. According to various sources, dozens of people on this boat drowned. As of 02:28 a.m. on March 11, the authorities were informed of the urgency and danger of the situation. The Italian authorities knowingly delayed the rescue and left them to die,” Alarm Phone wrote on Twitter, which throughout the day had warned of the danger to the small boat.
Later, the activists wrote on their social networks: “After the sinking with many deaths, we fear that the survivors, who saw their friends die before being rescued by a merchant ship, will be forced to go to Libya or Tunisia, where they they expect inhumane conditions.”
“We ask that all survivors be welcomed in a safe place in Europe”they added
While for his part, the Mediterranean NGO Saving Humans He criticized that “a few days after the Cutro shipwreck, we are faced with a new dramatic case of non-assistance and delay in rescuing people in danger at sea” and added; “Everything possible must be done immediately to recover the missing and the survivors.”
The ship had been identified off the coast of Libya and Alarm Phone explained that the Italian authorities had given instructions to the merchant ships present in the area but that they limited themselves to observing for 24 hours, as shown in a video taken by the light aircraft “Seabird2” of the Sea Watch NGO.
For its part, Sea Wach reported that the coordination center in Rome contacted two merchant ships to coordinate the rescue with the Libyan Coast Guard, but “due to bad weather, Tripoli reported that it could not send boats.”
The video shows the ship in great difficulty due to strong waves and merchant ships trying to protect it from the waves but unable to intervene.
“News reached me of a new shipwreck, in which more people would have died, off the coast of Libya. It seems that this ship asked for help and was told to contact the Libyan coast guard. It is a disgrace for Italy and for Europe, we cannot continue to see the Mediterranean reduced to a great open-air cemetery. That is why I ask for a minute of silence”, said the new secretary of the opposition Democratic Party (PD), Elly Schlein, during the assembly that is being held in Rome.
The information of the new shipwreck It comes hours after the bodies of two adults and a baby were found on the beaches of Steccato di Cutro, in the region of Calabria, southern Italy, so There are 79 victims of the shipwreck of a migrant boat on February 26.
Of the 79 dead, 32 were minors and 23 of them children between the ages of a few months and 12 years, and it is believed that the number of deaths from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan could reach one hundred since the 80 survivors assured that in The boat was traveling about 200 people.
In the last five days, nearly 4,000 migrants have reached the Italian shores and the Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, in a radio interview stated that “the situation is worrying, Europe must take notice”.
“Italy will continue to forcefully raise the problem but it cannot be left alone because the 7,000 kilometers of coastline are also European borders,” added Tajani, who awaits answers at the next European summit at the end of March.
The newspaper Corriere della Sera publishes today that the Italian secret services have highlighted that in Libya there are 685,000 people willing to leave and cross the Mediterranean to land on the Italian coast
According to the Milanese daily, 104,000 immigrants landed in Italy last year, partly also due to the pandemic, but according to forecasts by intelligence services, the number of arrivals by 2023 will be exponentially higher.
Since the beginning of 2023, 17,592 migrants have arrived on the Italian shores, triple the number of the same period last year (5,976).
With information from EFE
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Source-www.infobae.com