Italian Island 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…

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…

Ester Percossi can still hear the screams, feel the cold and see the terror in people's eyes.She is one of the survivors of the shipwreck of the Costa Concordia, the luxury cruise liner that capsized after hitting rocks just off the coast of the small Italian island of Giglio on Jan. 13, 2012, killing 32 people in one of Europe's worst maritime disasters.Percossi and other survivors have returned to the island to pay tribute to the dead and again thank the islanders who, in the dark and dead of winter…

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 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.

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

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

A charity rescue ship carrying 134 migrants, mostly Africans, was stranded off the coast of Italy on Friday as a political battle in Rome stopped it from docking and even the medical conditions of those on board were disputed.The migrants, picked up off Libya over the last two weeks, are waiting to disembark on the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, but far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has ordered his officials not to let them do so.Salvini, who has built his popularity on a vigorous campaign against illegal immigration, is acting in defiance of his own prime minister and despite six European Union nations agreeing to take…

An Italian charity ship was escorted into the port of Lampedusa by police on Tuesday after rescuing 49 Africans in the Mediterranean, with Interior Minister Matteo Salvini calling for the crew to be arrested.A judicial source said a magistrate had ordered that the boat, the Mare Jonio, be seized as an investigation is launched into allegations of aiding and abetting human trafficking.The vessel picked up the migrants, including 12 minors, on Monday after their rubber boat started to sink in the central Mediterranean…

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said on Tuesday he would not let an Italian-flagged charity ship disembark 49 Africans rescued in the Mediterranean, setting up a fresh confrontation with humanitarian groups over migration.The Mare Jonio picked up the migrants, including 12 minors, on Monday after their rubber boat started to sink in the central Mediterranean, some 42 miles (68 km) off the coast of Libya.The vessel headed straight for the nearby Italian island of Lampedusa but was not granted permission to dock and is currently sailing close to land, awaiting further instructions.Salvini, who heads the anti-immigrant League party, has told non-governmental organisations that Italy's ports are closed to them…

Tunisia’s coast guard said it recovered the bodies of five migrants on Thursday whose boat sank as they tried to cross the Mediterranean to the Italian island of Lampedusa.Crews were now searching for another five Tunisians that relatives had said were also on the boat that set off this week from the southern coastal community of Zarzis, the coast guard added.Human traffickers are increasingly using Tunisia as a launch pad for migrants heading to Europe as the Libyan coast guard, aided by armed groups, has tightened controls.Many Tunisian migrants say they are fleeing high unemployment and inflation - part of an economic crisis that hit after the toppling of autocrat Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.At least 80 migrants died when their boat sank off the Tunisian coast in June, one of the wo

Three migrants died in the Mediterranean on Monday night, a German aid group said, during Italian-led rescue operations in which thousands more were pulled to safety from rickety boats. About 5,000 migrants were picked up off the Libyan coast by emergency services, Italy's navy, aid groups and private boats on Monday, and rescues were continuing on Tuesday, according to an Italian coastguard spokesman. "Despite all efforts, three people died from a sinking rubber boat" and rescue boats in the area are struggling to cope, German humanitarian group Jugend Rettet said on Facebook. Jugend Rettet (Rescuing Youth) is one of about nine aid…

Five migrants are believed to have died when a rubber boat sank off the coast of Libya on Tuesday, aid groups said on Friday, adding that reports earlier this week that many more had been killed were wrong. Probably still in shock after he was taken to the Italian island of Lampedusa, a 16-year-old Gambian boy told humanitarian workers on Wednesday he was the only survivor of the wreck, Cecile Pouilly, a spokeswoman for the UNHCR, told reporters. When 140 others disembarked at a different port on Thursday, several identified the boy as having been on the same boat. "So we have pretty good information that this tragedy didn't occur as was initially reported," said Joel Millman, spokesman for the International Organization for Migration.

More than 5,000 migrants were saved on Tuesday and Wednesday off the Libyan coast and 28 bodies recovered, bringing the total number of people rescued this week to more than 11,000, Italy's coast guard said. More than 20 people were reported to have suffocated in the hold of one overloaded fishing boat, bringing the total death toll for Monday and Tuesday to 50. Italian officials said three women saved on Monday had given birth over the past 24 hours on a coast guard vessel that was bringing some 1,000 refugees to Sicily. The women and their three children were all reported to be in good health. The coast guard said the 4,655 migrants rescued on Tuesday were taken from 33 overcrowded boats…

Many bodies found in the hold of one ship. More than 4,650 migrants were saved on Tuesday off the Libyan coast and 28 bodies recovered, bringing the total number of people rescued in the last 48 hours to nearly 11,000, Italy's coast guard said on Wednesday. More than 20 people were reported to have suffocated in the hold of one overloaded fishing boat, bringing the total death toll for Monday and Tuesday to 50. Italian officials said three women saved on Monday had given birth over the past 24 hours on a coast guard vessel that was bringing some 1,000 refugees to Sicily. The women and their three children were all reported to be in good health.

About 6,055 migrants were rescued on Monday as they tried to reach Europe on about 40 boats, one of the highest numbers in a single day, Italy's coast guard said. A statement said at least nine migrants had died and a pregnant woman and a child had been taken by helicopter to a hospital on the Italian island of Lampedusa, halfway between Sicily and the Libyan coast. One coast guard ship rescued about 725 migrants on a single rubber boat, one of some 20 rescue operations during the day. About 10 ships from the coast guard, the navy and humanitarian organisations were involved in the rescues, most of which took place some 30 miles off the coast of Libya. Monday was the third anniversary of the sinking of a migrant boat off Lampedusa in which 386 people died.

Italian vessels have helped rescue nearly 1,800 migrants from boats trying to reach Italy from north Africa in the last 24 hours, the navy said on Friday, indicating that numbers are rising as the weather warms up. The navy said 1,759 migrants were rescued in 10 operations involving the Italian navy, coastguard and finance police, the European Union's external borders agency Frontex and the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres. The Italian frigate Grecale was taking the migrants to the Sicilian port of Augusta, where they were expected to arrive on Saturday morning, a navy statement said. It gave no details of their nationalities.

BERLIN, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Images shot in the hold of a boat where dozens of people died of asphyxiation after five hours in the Mediterranean brought home the horror of the refugee crisis in the film "Fuocoammare" (Fire at Sea) shown at the Berlin film festival on Saturday. A theme of this year's festival is to encourage the world to help and welcome refugees. Director Gianfranco Rosi's harrowing two-hour documentary, which is in competition for the top Golden Bear prize, underscores the urgency of the problem. Rosi, whose "Sacro GRA" won the top prize at the Venice film festival in 2013, said his latest film "bears witness to a tragedy that's happening right in front of our eyes".