Lampedusa 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…

A new ferry, fully owned by the Sicilian Region and entirely "Made in Sicily", will carry out the connection service with Lampedusa and Pantelleria. The President of the Sicilian Region Renato Schifani and the CEO and General Director of Fincantieri Pierroberto Folgiero signed the contract for the construction of a new ferry (Ropax Class A), for a price of almost $126m.“The signing of this contract represents a turning point for connections with the smaller islands of Sicily," said Schifani.

Pope Francis said on Friday that migrants who risk drowning at sea "must be rescued" because doing so was "a duty of humanity" and that those who impede rescues commit "a gesture of hate".Francis, 86, spoke at an inter-religious prayer service before a monument dedicated to those lost at sea. Earlier, the city's archbishop, Cardinal Jean Marc Aveline, an Algerian-born Frenchman, criticized politicians who block NGOs and their ships from saving drowning people."We cannot be resigned to seeing human beings treated as bargaining chips, imprisoned and tortured in atrocious ways," Francis said.

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 German charity said on Friday its rescue ship was impounded by Italian authorities for breaching tougher migration rules introduced by the country's right-wing government as part of a crackdown on NGO sea-rescue activities.The Mare*Go organization said it disobeyed instructions to take 36 migrants it picked up on Thursday to the Sicilian port of Trapani, taking them instead to Lampedusa island, saving itself hours of navigation."The rescue ship is blocked for 20 days" in Lampedusa, the NGO in a statement, adding it would also "likely face a fine because we broke the new Italian Decree Law" sponsored by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.Noting that Trapani was 32 hours away from the location where the migrants were picked up…

A rescue ship funded by British street artist Banksy was seized in Lampedusa on Sunday after Italy's coast guard said the boat had disobeyed its instructions to head to Sicily after carrying out a migrant rescue operation. The coast guard said it had ordered the MV Louise Michel ship to dock in Trapani in Sicily after it performed an initial rescue operation in Libya's Search And Rescue area. The ship instead went to assist migrants on three other boats in Malta's Search And Rescue area. The coast guard added that it was already on its way to assist the three other boats at the time. It ordered the Louise Michel to dock in accordance with a new law passed in Italy this year establishing a code of conduct for migrant charity ships, the coast guard said.

The Italian coastguard launched multiple rescue operations on Friday to save hundreds of migrants packed aboard several boats off the toe of Italy, less than two weeks after at least 73 drowned in a shipwreck."More than 1,000 people are in danger," the coastguard said in a statement.The president of the southern Calabria region, Roberto Occhiuto, said a total of around 1,300 migrants were aboard boats which the European Union's border force Frontex had warned could run into problems.Three…

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.

German rescue charity Sea-Eye said on Thursday it had asked Italy for a safe port to disembark some 800 migrants it rescued from boats in distress in the central Mediterranean.The charity vessel SEA-EYE 4 Took onboard another 400 people from a wooden boat on Wednesday night in a seventh rescue operation since it set sail in mid-October, bringing the total to around 800, Sea-Eye said in a statement.It said Rise Above, another rescue ship operated by NGO Mission Lifeline, reached the split-level wooden boat first…

At least seven migrants, one of them pregnant, drowned after a boat carrying them capsized five miles off the Italian island of Lampedusa early on Wednesday, officials said.About 10 other people were missing, Luigi Patronaggio, the chief prosecutor of a team leading investigations into the deaths, told Reuters.The migrants are believed to have started their journey in Tunisia, said Patronaggio, who is working with magistrates based in the Sicilian city of Agrigento."This latest tragedy in the Mediterranean is heartbreaking…

At least 39 migrants died when two boats sank off Tunisia on Tuesday as they tried to cross the Mediterranean to the Italian island of Lampedusa, the Tunisian defense ministry said.The coast guard rescued 165 others, and searches for more survivors are still ongoing off the coast of Sfax, ministry spokesman Mohamed Zekri said. All the dead migrants were from sub-Saharan Africa, he added.The coastline near the Tunisian port city of Sfax has become a major departure point for people fleeing conflict and poverty in Africa and the Middle East and seeking a better life in Europe.In 2019…

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…

The Italian coastguard sent help on Saturday to a rescue boat funded by British street artist Banksy after the vessel issued urgent calls for assistance, saying it was stranded in the Mediterranean and overloaded with migrants.The coastguard said a patrol boat dispatched from the southern Italian island of Lampedusa had taken on board 49 of "those considered most vulnerable" among the 219 migrants picked up by the ship since Thursday off the coast of Libya.Named after a French feminist anarchist, the Louise Michel started operating last week. Despite the help from Italy, it has still not found a safe port for the rest of the mainly African migrants on board.The 49 people who were transferred off the ship include 32 women and 13 children…

Italian ports cannot be considered safe because of the coronavirus epidemic and will not let migrant boats operated by charities dock, the government has ruled.The decision was taken late on Tuesday after a ship operated by the German non-governmental group Sea-Eye picked up some 150 people off Libya and headed towards Italy."For the entire duration of the national health emergency caused by the spread of the COVID-19 virus, Italian ports cannot guarantee the requisites needed to be classified and defined as a place of safety…

The bodies of five migrants who died when a boat capsized in rough waters off the southern Lampedusa coast a week ago have been found, Italy's coast guard said on Sunday, bringing the overall death toll to 18.The boat, which survivors said had departed from Libya taking advantage of a respite in bad weather, was believed to carry some 170 people. The Lampedusa coast guard managed to bring safely onshore 147 migrants after the accident on Nov. 23.After the new bout of bad weather blocked search operations for several days, on Sunday six coast guard divers helped by a remotely-operated submarine found four bodies underwater and a fifth one floating."We can only listen to the silence of the dead…

Four migrants have died and up to 16 more are missing after trying to cross into Europe from North Africa on a small raft, Spain's coastguard said on Wednesday.Rescuers saved 58 people from the raft, which was found drifting around 37 miles off the coast of Morocco on Tuesday night. Three bodies were recovered from the water and another migrant died after being taken to shore, a spokeswoman for the coastguard said.Sea-borne migration to Europe has dropped sharply since peaking in 2015 but thousands still attempt the dangerous Mediterranean crossing every year, looking to escape poverty and conflict in their home countries.The latest group was brought to Spain's North African enclave of Melilla…

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 least nine people died when a boat carrying dozens of migrants sank off the coast of the island of Lampedusa, south of Sicily, Italy's coastguard said on Monday.The coastguard said rescue vessels had picked up 22 people, and search operations for other survivors were underway after an alert was received late on Sunday night that a boat carrying some 50 people was in difficulty.The U.N. migration agency said the boat had set sail from Tunisia and had been carrying Tunisian and west African migrants.Vessels from the coastguard and customs police had reached the vessel, which overturned in rough seas about six nautical miles from the coast of Lampedusa, the coastguard said in a statement.

A German non-governmental organisation filed on Friday a court request in Malta calling on the government there to accept 13 Tunisian migrants who it said had been saved from a sinking boat in Malta's search and rescue zone.The NGO Sea Eye, which operates the rescue ship Alan Kurdi, called on Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to respect international law and order the immediate disembarkation of the migrants.It was not immediately clear when Malta would reply to the court filing.Sea Eye said the migrants were rescued by the Alan Kurdi on Aug.

An Italian prosecutor ordered to seize the Open Arms ship that has been stranded at sea by the Italian island of Lampedusa for the past 19 days with almost 100 migrants aboard, the prosecutor's office said on Tuesday.The migrants are expected to be removed from the boat tonight, the prosecutor's office said, but details were yet to be formalized.The Spanish charity boat has repeatedly asked to bring the migrants ashore, but hasn't been able to do so because of an Italian ban on private rescue ships.Reporting by Wladimir Pantaleone

Italy's Transport Minister has welcomed Spain's decision to send its navy to pick up migrants on board the Open Arms charity ship and take them to Spanish shores."I hope that Spain answers our appeal and commits to stopping Open Arms in the future with the means and in the ways it deems right," Toninelli said in a statement.The Open Arms, at sea for 19 days with almost 100 migrants onboard, has been waiting just off the Italian port of Lampedusa asking to bring the migrants ashore despite an Italian ban on private rescue ships docking.Reporting by Stephen Jewkes

Italy's Transport Minister has welcomed Spain's decision to send its navy to pick up migrants on board the Open Arms charity ship and take them to Spanish shores."I hope that Spain answers our appeal and commits to stopping Open Arms in the future with the means and in the ways it deems right," Toninelli said in a statement.The Open Arms, at sea for 19 days with almost 100 migrants onboard, has been waiting just off the Italian port of Lampedusa asking to bring the migrants ashore despite an Italian ban on private rescue ships docking.(Reporting by Stephen Jewkes; editing by Pamela Barbaglia)

A charity that operates a rescue ship carrying more than a hundred migrants off the coast of Italy on Sunday said that it could not accept an offer from Spain to dock in Algeciras, citing an emergency situation on board.The migrants, most of whom are African, were picked up by the Open Arms boat off the coast of Libya and have been waiting to disembark on the southern Italian island of Lampedusa."We do not accept Spain as a port to go because we are in a state of extreme humanitarian emergency. What they need is to be disembarked now," Open Arms' spokeswoman said."It is unthinkable to navigate for six days; that is what it would takes for us to arrive to Algeciras."Reporting by Joan Faus