The Mediterranean once again became a tomb this Sunday. More than fifty people drowned after the precarious wooden boat in which they were traveling capsized off the coast of the region of Calabria, in southern Italy. Of the 80 people rescued alive, 21 were taken to a hospital. At press time, the Italian coast guard had recovered 60 bodies from the sea, including several children. The Italian authorities detained a man of Turkish origin suspected of being one of the traffickers in command of the boat.
The lifeless bodies of some of the victims were located on a beach in the town of Cutro, in the province of Crotone, while another group of people managed to reach the coast. The rescue services estimate that around 180 migrants were traveling on board the ship, the majority from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan or Somalia, although according to the testimony of some survivors, the number of occupants could reach 250 people, for which reason the Italian authorities fear that the death toll may exceed one hundred.
The boat had left four days earlier from the port of Izmir, in Turkey, but about 150 meters from the shore it collided with some rocks and broke in two. The night before, a plane from the European agency Frontex He sighted the boat and notified the Italian coast guard, but the terrible sea conditions forced the rescue team to turn around.
“When we got to the point of the shipwreck we saw bodies floating everywhere and we managed to rescue two men who were holding a child. Unfortunately, the little one was dead. He was 7 years old,” he said. Laura De Paoli, doctor who participated in the rescue operation with the Italian coast guard.
The tragedy comes just a few days after the Italian Parliament gave the green light to a controversial decree law that hinders the work of NGOs that save migrants in the Mediterranean, by forcing humanitarian ships to carry out a single rescue by going out to sea and disembark in ports far from the rescue point. A regulation that, according to the opposition, increases the risk of deaths in the central Mediterranean.
“The Italian government is committed to preventing departures and this type of tragedy and will continue to do so by first demanding the greatest collaboration of the States of departure and origin,” said the Prime Minister. Giorgia Meloni. For his part, the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, specified that most of the victims of the shipwreck “fled from very difficult conditions” and demanded greater collaboration from the European Union.
An appeal to which the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyenwho urged progress in the reform of the right to asylum in the EU and “redouble the efforts” of all Member States, some of which are strongly opposed to the migration pact, including Hungary in Viktor Orbánone of Meloni’s main allies in Europe.