Italian Coast News

Nine people, including a baby, have died after their boat capsized while trying to cross the Mediterranean in stormy weather, and another 15 people are feared missing, Italy's coast guard said on Thursday.The Italian coast guard said it received a cooperation request from the Maltese search and rescue (SAR) authority after the boat capsized approximately 30 miles (50 km) southeast of the island of Lampedusa on Wednesday .The coast guard said it dispatched its own patrol boat to the scene…

Italian authorities on Wednesday said forty-one migrants are thought to have died in a shipwreck last week in the central Mediterranean, according to accounts by survivors who have been taken to the island of Lampedusa.Local public prosecutor Salvatore Vella confirmed media reports that four people who survived the shipwreck told rescuers they were on a boat carrying 45 people, including three children.Vella's office has opened an investigation into the incident.The 7-meter-long boat set off on Thursday morning from Tunisia's Sfax…

A boat carrying about 500 migrants, including a newborn baby and pregnant women, has disappeared in the central Mediterranean, two charities said on Friday. Alarm Phone, a group that picks up calls from migrant vessels in distress, said it lost contact with the boat on Wednesday morning. At the time, the boat was adrift, with no working engine, in high seas about 320 km (200 miles) north of the Libyan port of Benghazi and more than 400 km away from Malta or Italy's southern island of Sicily.

The Italian coast guard is carrying out operations to rescue two boats carrying a total of 1,200 people, it said on Monday, after a surge in the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa over the weekend. One of the boats, which is carrying 400 people and is in the Ionian Sea off the coast of Calabria, southern Italy, had previously been sighted in Maltese waters. Earlier on Monday, German NGO Sea-Watch International, which had located the fishing boat with one of its planes…

At least 29 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa died when their two boats sank off the coast of Tunisia as they tried to cross the Mediterranean to Italy, the Tunisian coast guard said on Sunday. Separately, in the last four days, five migrant boats have sunk off the coast of the southern city of Sfax, leaving 67 missing and nine dead, after a significant increase in boats heading towards Italy.Tunisia has taken over from Libya as a main departure point for people fleeing poverty and conflict in Africa and the Middle East in the hope of a better life in Europe.Houssem Jebabli…

The Italian coast guard has rescued around 750 migrants in two separate operations off the country's southern coastline, hours after at least five people died and 33 were missing in an attempted sea crossing from Tunisia.The coast guard said some 295 people were rescued from a fishing boat intercepted 167 km from the eastern coast of the Calabria region, while about 450 were rescued from another fishing vessel 185 km east of Syracuse in southern Sicily.The second vessel was in precarious state of seaworthiness…

Rescuers recovered four more bodies on Monday, a day after a wooden sailboat carrying migrants to Europe smashed onto rocks in stormy weather off southern Italy, bringing the death toll to 63, including at least 14 children.Rescuers said most of the migrants came from Afghanistan, as well as from Iran, Somalia, Syria and elsewhere. Pakistan's foreign ministry said 20 Pakistani citizens were on the boat, with four missing and 16 survivors of the nighttime shipwreck.Many of the victims washed ashore close to where the vessel sank near Steccato di Cutro…

Eight migrants were found dead, and around 40 were rescued by the Italian coast guard overnight on a ship off the coast of the island of Lampedusa, Italian media reported on Friday. The rescuers took the survivors to the main port on Lampedusa, which lies to the south of Sicily, news agency ANSA said. Italian authorities escorted another three stricken vessels carrying 156 people to Lampedusa, one of the main entry points for people trying to reach Europe. Italy is facing a surge in arrivals from North Africa.

San Marino Ship Register said it has hired Rear Admiral Giovanni Greco to develop institutional relations and national maritime legislation.A graduate of the Genoa Nautical Institute, R. Adm. Greco’s career started on board merchant ships in Europe, the United States, the Persian Gulf, and the Far East. In 1991, he joined the Italian Coast Guard until his retirement in May 2022. During his service, he was harbor master in Fano, Ortona, Crotone, and Vice Commandant in Ravenna.

Three people died and two were still missing after a tugboat sank off the southern Italian coast while pulling a pontoon on a route between Italy and Albania, the coastguard said on Thursday.The Franco P tugboat sent an alarm signal on Wednesday evening, while sailing some 50 nautical miles (92.6 km) off the city of Bari, an Italian coastguard statement said.The coastguard initially said four bodies had been recovered and another had been spotted at sea.However, in a statement issued later in the afternoon, it said three bodies were being transported ashore while two were still missing."The search continues for two more bodies whose discovery was initially reported by units in the area but did not prove to be true," it said.The tug's captain was saved by a Croatian vessel during rescue ope

The Italian Coast Guard on Monday signed a contract for the design and construction of a new multi-role offshore unit (UAM) for missions ranging from sea rescue to maritime safety, from marine conservation to fish resources protection, as well as civil protection.The signing took place in Rome at the headquarters of the General Command of the Harbor Authorities - Coast Guard between the Commanding General, Adm. Inspector Nicola Carlone, and the CEO of Fincantieri, Giuseppe Bono…

Your browser does not support HTML5 video.The Italian Coast Guard said on Saturday it had rescued 45 migrants after their ship capsized 15 miles south of the Italian island of Lampedusa."At the moment, a total of 45 migrants, all men, have been rescued and arrived this morning in Lampedusa," the Italian Coast Guard said in a statement sent in the late afternoon, after indicating earlier a number of 47 people rescued.It did not give any indications of the nationality of the rescued people.The Coast Guard said it was continuing to search for any missing people…

Carnival Corporation's Costa Cruises brand said its liquefied natural gas (LNG)-powered flagship Costa Smeralda has become he first vessel to bunker LNG in Italy.Carried out in the port of La Spezia and completed at 6 p.m. on Sunday, the operation was supported by the Italian Coast Guard, Port Authority of Eastern Ligurian Sea, local authorities and Shell, which is the LNG supplier partner for Costa Group and its parent company, Carnival Corporation.The operation took place with the ship berthed at Molo Garibaldi pier…

Naval automation and navigation systems supplier Seastema said its SEAS-PILOT HCS autopilot system has been certified with the MED/4.16 Type Approval Certificate of Conformity by DNV GL.With this result, Seastema, a Fincantieri company, becomes the only Italian manufacturer, and one of the first worldwide, of a certified autopilot system in conformity with the new European regulation MED (Marine Equipment Directive) 2019/1397, the highest international standard in the marine sector.The…

The leader of a Spanish rescue mission said on Sunday that Italian authorities had refused to grant port access to its Open Arms ship, leaving the vessel stranded in rough conditions in the Mediterranean with more than 70 African migrants on board.The 73 migrants were picked up from a packed rubber dinghy drifting about 50 miles off Libya on Wednesday night.Italy has allowed the ship to enter its national waters to shelter from a storm but has refused to let the vessel dock, the charity said.Open Arms Mission Chief Ricardo Gatti, who is onboad the ship, said the organization has requested to land in Italy and Malta but has been denied permission.

At the end of March 2019, the maritime sales team of RENK’s Rheine plant managed to win its first new construction project for the maritime hybrid system called MARHY. This system enables ships with 2-stroke engines to efficiently generate on-board power supply by using the main engine (PTO-operation). In addition, a fully electric drive (PTH- operation) is available for zones with low emissions zones (port areas) and for emergencies.The newbuild is a 30,000 cbm LNG carrier owned by Knutsen OAS. It is equipped with a 6,00 kW strong 2-stroke main engine and is the first ofthis size.

The maritime classification society Lloyd’s Register (LR) has been awarded recognized organization status by the Italian flag administration and is now authorized to issue statutory certification on its behalf to all seagoing ships sailing with the Italian flag.In line with its new RO status, LR will establish an Italy branch of LR Group Ltd so the classification society can fully support Italy and the country’s shipowners.As LR will be authorised to work on behalf of the Italian flag Administration, owners of Italian-flagged ships will have the opportunity to work with LR for classification and consultancy services and benefit from LR’s extensive technical expertise.By having RO status…

The Ulysse, ro-ro-cargo ship operated by the Tunisian operator CTN, struck the Cyprus-based  container ship CLS Virgina near the French Mediterranean island of Corsica early Sunday, causing no injuries but causing a 4-kilometer (2.4 mile) fuel spill in the Mediterranean Sea.According to a statement from the regional French maritime authority the collision smashed a hole of several meters (yards) long in the hull of one of the ships, causing the spill.AP reported that the spill created a trail of pollution nearly 2 and a half miles long and several hundred yards wide, heading away from Corsica to the northwest, toward the French and Italian mainland.The report quoted officials saying that they had not yet identified the liquid…

Italy on Friday urged Malta to go to the aid of an overcrowded boat carrying hundreds of migrants, only hours after the Italian president intervened to end a dispute within the ruling coalition over rescued immigrants.There have been two similar stand-offs with Malta since Italy's new populist government, which pairs the far-right League party with the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, took power on June 1.Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who is also leader of the League, said Italy would not take in the migrants because they were Malta's responsibility. Malta, a small island nation, has generally refused to take in large numbers of boat migrants.Italy has seen more than 650…

Italy has refused to allow a commercial vessel flying an Italian flag to bring ashore rescued migrants, sticking to a hardline policy on new arrivals as it presses European allies to share the burden of hosting an influx of displaced people.A commercial ship that supplies oil platforms off the coast of Libya pulled 66 migrants to safety on Monday, but it was told not to bring them to Italy, an Interior Ministry source said.Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli, who oversees the coast guard and the country's ports, said the migrants had been transferred to an Italian coast guard vessel on Tuesday after some of them threatened the lives of the Italian crew.They will be brought to Italy…

The European Union’s border agency Frontex launched a new Mediterranean operation called Themis on Thursday, removing the obligation of the previous mission to bring rescued migrants only to Italy. Italy has repeatedly lamented a lack of EU solidarity in managing immigration. The previous Frontex operation, called Triton, required all those rescued at sea to be brought to Italy even if another EU country, such as Malta, was closer. “Triton said that whomever rescued would be taken to Italy,” said Izabella Cooper, a spokeswoman for Frontex. Triton was a Greek god and the messenger of the sea, while Themis was the goddess of divine law and order.

Having undergone six months of upgrading activities at Fincantieri’s Genoa drydocking facility, Offshore Patrol Vessel P61 has been delivered to the Armed Forces of Malta. The upgrade, which aimed to improve the vessel’s reaction capability, included the installation of a new main propulsion plant, other machinery and equipment as well as the overhaul of most of the ship’s onboard systems. The project was co-financed by the European Union Internal Security Fund. Offshore Patrol…

More than 1,300 migrants were rescued in 13 separate missions in the Mediterranean on Friday, bringing the total helped over the last three days to more than 2,600, the coast guard said. The migrants, who were aboard 13 vessels, were saved in the central Mediterranean by ships from the Italian coast guard, the Italian and British navies, merchant ships and vessels operated by non-government organisations, a statement said. Another 1,300 were rescued on Wednesday. The voyage from Libya across the Mediterranean to Italy is currently the main route to Europe for migrants. A record 181,000 made the journey last year, most on flimsy boats run by people-smugglers. More than 5,000 are believed to have died attempting the crossing in 2016.