Italy Detains Migrant Rescue Ships
Italian coastguards have seized two charity rescue boats at the port of Palermo citing "technical and operational" irregularities, which the owners called an excuse to hinder missions to save the lives of migrants at sea.The seizure of the German-flagged Alan Kurdi and Spanish-flagged Aita Mari this week followed a sharp rise in the number of migrants reaching Italy, which has angered and embarrassed the government as it battles the coronavirus epidemic.For years Italy was the primary route into Europe for hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and other irregular migrants.
More than 120 Migrants Feared Dead after Boat's Motor Stolen
More than 120 migrants are feared to have died at the weekend when the motor of their boat was stolen, causing it to sink, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said, citing testimony from survivors brought to Italy. Two Sudanese men who arrived with around 1,000 other migrants at the Sicilian port of Palermo on Monday told IOM staff they left Libya in a rubber boat packed with 130 people, mainly Sudanese, IOM spokesman Flavio Di Giacomo said. After a few hours at sea, the men said a group of Libyans caught them up. "They described (the Libyans) as pirates, but they are basically traffickers," Di Giacomo said. "They stole the motor - something which has happened a few times recently - and at that point the boat started to take on water and sank," he said.
Grimaldi Lines: First Departure from Hamburg
As the first vessel to be used in the new Euro-Aegean service of the Grimaldi Lines shipping company, the RoRo ship Grande Sicilia was dispatched at Hamburg's Unikai Terminal on 27 December 2008. Together with its sister ship the Grande Italia, the Grande Sicilia forms part of a new service offering fortnightly departures from Hamburg in the first instance. The ports of call are Setubal, Valencia, Leghorn, Civitavecchia, Salerno, Piraeus, Beirut, Lattakia (only when carrying sufficient cargo), Gemlik and Alexandria.
MMA Training Ship Arrives in Sicily
Maine Maritime Academy’s (MMA) training ship, State of Maine, arrived earlier today in Palermo, Sicily, a port-of-call not originally on the itinerary of the college’s annual two-month training cruise. The rescheduled port visit was necessitated by the ship’s 3-day diversion to Siracusa, Sicily, due to an onboard medical emergency experienced by the ship’s master, Captain Laurence Wade. Wade was hospitalized for additional medical care at a local facility. According to Captain Jeff Loustaunau, MMA’s commandant of midshipmen, the remainder of the itinerary of the training cruise remains unaffected by the substitution of the port of Palermo for a previously scheduled visit in Odessa, Ukraine.
