The Italian coast guard on Saturday rescued 103 people from a sailboat off the southeastern coast. The migrants are thought to have sailed near the site of last Wednesday’s deadly shipwreck in Greece.
At dawn on Saturday (June 17) the Italian coast guard managed to rescue 103 people from a sailboat that got into trouble more than 185 kilometers off the southern coast of Calabria. Earlier reports said there were 96 migrants on board.
Rough seas and the large number of migrants initially made it impossible for the coast guard to transfer them safely onto the patrol boat. Members of the coast guard had to board the sailboat to reassure the migrants on board and to take control of the vessel so that the rescue boat could come up alongside it.
With the help of a Portuguese patrol boat operating for Frontex, the EU’s border agency, and a cargo vessel providing shelter from the sea and wind, all the migrants were finally brought on board the patrol boat as dawn broke, the coast guard said in a media statement. They were taken to the port of Roccella.
One of the migrants -- a woman -- who fell into the sea during the early stages of the rescue operation was immediately recovered by coast guard rescuers and taken aboard the patrol boat, the coast guard said.
Boat sailed past Greece near shipwreck site
The news agency Associated Press reported on Saturday that Italian authorities had informed their Greek counterparts of the presence of a sailboat near where Wednesday's shipwreck happened.
"The Greek coast guard monitored the sailboat, which was proceeding normally. A spokesperson could not verify it was the same boat that was rescued off Italy Saturday but assumed it was," the AP report said.
The Italian news site citynow.it said the boat may have left from Turkey overnight last Tuesday.
About 57,350 migrants have arrived by boat in Italy this year, according to the interior ministry, more than twice the number in the same period in 2022. The UNHCR puts the figure at just over 56,000.
Most came from Ivory Coast, Egypt, Guinea, Pakistan and Bangladesh, as well as more than 4,000 Tunisians and 3,500 Syrians, according to Italy’s official statistics.
More than 1,000 deaths
Hundreds of people have lost their lives in the attempt to cross from North Africa to Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Spain and Malta, the EU member states bordering the Mediterranean sea.
The UN says the deaths of more than 1,000 people have been recorded on the Central Mediterranean route so far in 2023.
In February, at least 94 migrants, including 35 children, died in a shipwreck off Crotoni, about 120 kilometers north of Roccella on the Calabrian coast. An investigation revealed that Italy and Frontex covered up information that might have prevented the accident.