Time.news – The tragedy in the “fish war” that has been fought close to the Libyan coast for years has come close to: a Coast Guard patrol boat intervened to drive away three Italian fishing boats and a few shots were fired from the boat.
Giuseppe Giacalone, the commander of the “Aliseo” fishing boat of the Mazara del Vallo fleet, was injured by the glass shards generated by some bullets.
The accident occurred about thirty miles off the coast of Misrata and involved the fishing boats “Aliseo”, “Artemide” “Nuovo Cosimo”, a very fishy area which, however, the Italian government itself considers “high risk”.
A spokesman for the Libyan Navy assured that only “warning shots were fired in the air to stop boats that had trespassed in our territorial waters”. A version rejected by the fishermen: for the mayor of Mazara del Vallo, shots were fired “at eye level”.
The Italian Navy intervened with the Libeccio frigate to the rescue of the three strafed fishing boats and treated Giacalone on board, whose injuries are minor.
The Italian vessels were located “in the Libyan Fisheries Protection Zone” 35 miles north of the Al Khums coast. The trade wind then sailed to Sicily with seven crewmen and the Italian soldiers who medicated the commander. Arrival is scheduled for Friday evening.
In recent days, a Libyan patrol boat had already fired shots at another Mazara fishing boat, the “Michele Giacalone”.
Disappointment Farnesina: “high risk area where you cannot fish”
In the evening, the Farnesina announced that “investigations are underway on the dynamics of what happened” but did not hide a certain disappointment because the government has long warned that that stretch of sea is “at high risk” and on April 28 it had warned eight Italian fishing boats that had moved about 35-40 miles off the coast of Benghazi despite “advice”.
“The accident”, reads a note from the Foreign Ministry, “nevertheless confirms the danger of the area overlooking the coast of Libya where”, it is emphasized, “you cannot fish”.
The area of the accident, the Foreign Ministry recalled, “was defined as ‘high risk’ for all boats as early as May 2019 by the Interministerial Committee for Transport Security”.
An unheard warning, given that last Monday the “Alpino” frigate of the Navy had already had to intervene to help after a rubber dinghy coming from Cyrenaica was heading at great speed in the direction of the boats.
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