Central Mediterranean News

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…

Italian authorities said on Wednesday they had impounded a ship involved in migrant rescue operations in the central Mediterranean Sea, citing safety procedure irregularities.Under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's right-wing government, installed last year, Italy has taken a tougher stance towards migrant rescue NGOs, accusing them of facilitating the work of people traffickers.The Ocean Viking ship was seized while docked in the port of Civitavecchia, northwest of Rome on the Mediterranean coast."In particular, some of the crew did not possess the necessary licenses to handle the life-saving e

Survivors of a boat disaster that likely killed hundreds of migrants near Greece have given accounts of traffickers in North Africa cramming them into a clapped-out fishing trawler. They recounted hellish conditions above and below deck, with no food or water.Some also said the tragic end, when it came, was precipitated by the actions of the Greek coastguard. They have told judicial authorities of a doomed attempt to tow the overloaded trawler that caused the vessel to capsize…

Rescuers scoured seas off Greece on Thursday in a massive search operation, as hopes dwindled of finding survivors of a shipwreck that killed at least 78 migrants in one of Europe's deadliest such disasters in recent years.Reports suggested hundreds of people had packed the fishing boat that capsized and sank early on Wednesday in deep waters about 50 miles (80 km) from the southern coastal town of Pylos, while being shadowed by the Greek coast guard. As dawn broke on Thursday, a coast guard vessel sailed into the nearby port city of Kalamata, transferring victims.

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.

Thirty people are missing and 17 were rescued in the central Mediterranean on Sunday after the boat in which they were travelling from Libya capsized in bad weather, Italy's coastguard said.The tragedy comes just weeks after a Feb. 26 shipwreck near the southern region of Calabria, in which at least 79 died. Alarm Phone, a charity that picks up calls from migrant vessels in distress, assumed the 30 people were dead and blamed Italy for not sending its coastguard despite being repeatedly alerted on Saturday that the boat was in trouble."Clearly…

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…

Italy has arrested three people who they believe trafficked up to 200 migrants aboard a wooden boat that smashed apart on rocks off southern Italy on Sunday, killing at least 64 people, police said on Tuesday. Lieutenant Colonel Alberto Lippolis said a Turkish man and two Pakistani nationals had sailed the boat from Turkey to Italy despite the terrible weather, and were identified by survivors as "the main culprits of the tragedy"."According to initial investigations, they allegedly asked the migrants for about 8…

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.

Italy's new anti-immigration decree that aims to curtail NGO rescue ships should be scrapped as it violates international law, a top Catholic bishop said, in an unusually blunt attack against Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's right-wing government.The decree, which was introduced in December, forces charity-run ships to request a port and sail to it "without delay" after a rescue, rather than remain at sea looking for other migrant boats in distress, as generally used to occur."The fate of the decree should only be its repeal…

Sea rescue charities on Thursday condemned tough anti-immigration measures recently introduced by the Italian government, saying the new rules will cause ever more deaths in the Mediterranean.The decree, which was introduced last week, says charity ships must request a port and sail to it "without delay" after a rescue, rather than remain at sea looking for other migrant boats in distress, as it now happens.Ship captains risk fines of 50,000 euros ($52,760) and having their boats…

OPV P71, a new 246 ft. (75m), 50-million Euro flagship of the Armed Forces of Malta -- the largest patrol vessel ever built by Cantiere Navale Vittoria -- today entered the port of La Valletta to start its missions of surveillance, coastal and offshore surveillance and SAR operations in the Central Mediterranean.Measuring 74.8 x 13m with a draft of 3.8m and a full load displacement of over 2,000 tons, OPV P71 can accommodate a crew of nearly 50 and an additional 20 staff. The platform is characterized by an elevated bridge with 360-degree vision capabilities…

Four times the tonnage of the original Open Arms rescue tugboat and with a capacity to carry up to 1,000 people, the Open Arms Uno made its first rescue on Wednesday, picking up 101 migrants stranded on a wooden boat off the Tunisian coast."Sit down, if you don't sit down we don't continue," a crew member shouted to the excited migrants from a speed boat launched from the vessel operated by the Spanish charity Open Arms before all were taken aboard.One had jumped into the water to try to reach the speed boat…

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 57 people drowned on Monday after a boat capsized off the Libyan coast near Khums, the latest tragedy in the central Mediterranean, the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration (IOM) said. "According to survivors brought to shore by fishermen and the coast guard, at least 20 women and two children were among those who drowned," IOM spokeswoman Safa Msehli said in a tweet.Migrant boat departures to Italy and other parts of Europe from Libya and Tunisia have increased in recent months with better weather.

French medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said on Monday an MSF vessel that rescued hundreds of migrants and refugees in the Mediterranean last month has been detained in Italy, suggesting the seizure was politically motivated.Thousands of migrants embark each year on the crossing, often departing in small, inflatable boats from Libya with hopes of reaching Europe.So far this year, 866 migrant deaths have been recorded in the Mediterranean, according to the U.N. migration agency. Most of them, 723, died on the central Mediterranean route where the MSF vessel was operating.MSF’s research ship, the Geo Barents, was seized on July 2 in Augusta…

NATO Maritime Air (MARAIR) Operations team carried out a communications test flight with the NATO Alliance Ground System (AGS) during its flight on February 25, 2021.As the AGS was flying over the Central Mediterranean, MARAIR based out of NATO Maritime Command headquarters in Northwood, U.K. was able to establish a communications link to the AGS operators in the Sigonella Airbase, NATO Air Command and Combined Air Operations Center Torrejon.MARAIR was able to cross-reference the AGS sensor data with their automatic identification system (AIS) picture…

A German aid group that operated a migrant rescue boat in the Mediterranean said on Wednesday Italian magistrates were set to charge 21 individuals and three human rights groups with aiding illegal immigration from Libya.The announcement came after magistrates in the Sicilian city of Trapani said they had concluded a three-year investigation centered on the Iuventa boat, which was run by the Jugend Rettet non-governmental group.The magistrates did not make their findings public, but the Iuventa crew, which is kept abreast of legal developments, said they had been charged and faced up to 20 years in jail."Saving lives is never a crime.

Malta on Friday stopped passengers disembarking from the MSC Grandiosa cruise ship over a suspected case of COVID-19, Tourism Minister Julia Farrugia Portelli said.Although the cruise ship was let into Valletta harbor, it was not allowed to disembark passengers, Portelli said.The ship, which is cruising around the central Mediterranean, left port after taking in supplies.

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 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.

The U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) is advising vessel operators to exercise extra caution and safe navigation practices after multiple instances of significant GPS interference have been reported over the last year by vessels in port and underway in the eastern and central Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Port of Shanghai, China.The incidents have resulted in lost or inaccurate GPS signals affecting bridge navigation, GPS-based timing, and communications equipment…