2023-06-02 20:03:34
Why the Summer Loveboat loaded with migrants spotted by Frontex off italy on the evening of February 25, was he not rescued until six hours later, after being stranded on a shoal? It is on this shipwreck, which killed 94 people, that three senior officials of the Guardia di finanza, the Italian customs police, will have to explain themselves. And on which have investigated journalists from the Mondeof Lighthouse Reportsd’The countryfrom Sky News, from Tomorrow a you Southgerman newspaper.
Three months after the tragedy, the circumstances of the shipwreck become clearer, and the version of the Italian government pitches. “No emergency communication has been issued by Frontex”, the European coastguard agency, defended itself Giorgia Meloni March 4. However, a Frontex plane warned the local authorities of the possible presence on board the ship, according to a confidential report sent to the Italian coast guard and the Ministry of the Interior several hours before the sinking.
Degraded weather
The device of Frontex thus followed the Summer Love, alerted the Italian authorities to the violence of the wind and provided live images of the boat to Italy, approximately eight hours before the sinking. However, according to a recommendation from the European Court of Human Rights in 2019, boats “carrying refugees, asylum seekers and migrants” should be “considered as boats in distress”, since “invariably overloaded and unsuitable for a long voyage, especially if the sea is rough”.
The weather, precisely, was particularly degraded that night. Left to intercept the boat at 3:30 a.m. on February 26, while Frontex had reported it at 10:26 p.m., two customs police patrol boats even had to turn back “given the weather conditions”. Without the Coast Guard Command Center, based in Romeissues an alert.
It is only half an hour later that a rescue mission will be triggered. Too late. In the meantime, the smugglers managed to restart the engine of the boat, cut since February 24, around 2 p.m., due to overheating. But they veered off course, and the Summer Lovethe hold full of migrants, smashes its hull on a shoal near the beach of Cutro, in Calabria. Emergency underestimated by Frontex? Negligence of the Italian authorities? The Crotone prosecution will have to decide.
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