ROME - More than 1,000 migrants were brought ashore to southern Italy on Saturday after the coast guard launched major rescue operations for three boats struggling in rough seas off Calabria.
One coast guard vessel brought 584 people to Reggio Calabria city, while another escorted a packed fishing boat carrying 487 migrants into the port of Crotone, close to the scene of a Feb 26 shipwreck that killed at least 74 people.
Local officials said a further 200 migrants were picked up off the coast of Sicily and would be ferried to Catania later in the day.
The coast guard dispatched eight boats on Friday to various rescue operations, while a naval patrol boat was also called in to prevent any repeat of the disaster in February, when a migrant ship broke apart a stone’s throw from the Calabrian coast.
The body of a young girl was recovered on Saturday, bringing the death toll to 74. Seventy-nine people survived the shipwreck, but around 30 are still missing, presumed dead.
“The rescue operations... are particularly complex due to the large number of people on board the boats adrift,” the coast guard said.
In a separate incident earlier on Friday, the coast guard picked up almost 500 migrants close to the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, local media reported.
“In the last days, we have seen an increase in attempts to cross the Central Mediterranean,” the European Union’s border force Frontex told Reuters in a written statement. “Only since yesterday, our planes and drones have detected 20 boats carrying hundreds of people heading towards the Italian shores. The weather conditions will be deteriorating in the upcoming hours.”
Over 4,000 people have reached Italy since Wednesday, compared with around 1,300 for the whole of March 2022, as Italy’s conservative government struggles to contain the influx, despite repeated promises to stem the flow.
Italy’s migrant sea rescue capabilities have come under scrutiny following the Feb 26 shipwreck off Calabria. Police vessels had tried but failed to intercept their wooden boat due to adverse weather, and the coast guard, better equipped to face rough seas, was not immediately activated.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s rightist government responded on Thursday with tougher jail penalties for migrant smugglers and pledges to stop their illegal boat trips, while opening up legal migration channels.
The government approved a decree at the end of last year cracking down on charity rescue boats but its declared aim of curbing migrant crossings is having scant success.
As many as 1,869 migrants from 41 separate boats arrived on Lampedusa alone on Thursday, the ANSA news agency said, calling it an all-time record for landings on a single day. REUTERS
