Crotone: 500 migrants landed, their boat was in very bad condition

Five hundred people, mostly men with some minors, crammed together in the narrow spaces of an old fishing boat in poor condition: it is the story of a new, desperate disembarkation of migrantsthis time at the port of Crotone, occurred in the night between 10 and 11 March.

the vessel, rescued off the Calabrian coast by the Coast Guardhe challenged with great difficulty the waves of a sea force sixwhich in the Douglas Scale indicates a “very rough” sea, with waves from four to six meters high that have set the safety of migrants is in serious danger during the crossing of hope. They were on board hundreds of migrants (487 people, to be exact) from Pakistan, Egypt, Syria and Afghanistan. Asylum seekers, who apparently are departed from Tobruk, Lebanonmeeting point between Pakistan and Egypt, and sia remained at sea for at least five dayswere disembarked shortly before one in the morning and taken to the reception center of Sant’Anna, in Isola di Capo Rizzuto.

It was not the only sea rescue carried out during the night: the Coast Guard – despite the difficulties caused by the bad sea conditions – in fact secured three different vessels, for a total, this night alone, of about 1300 people rescued while trying to reach Italy in desperate conditions. And this morning, the Alarm Phone organization has signaled the need for immediate assistance for a boat adrift in the central Mediterranean, with about fifty people on board from Libya.

The situation of migrants, therefore, continues to be dramatic, and the risk that new massacres could be repeated is unfortunately high. The Government, from the Council of Ministers in Cutro, has launched a new decree law on the subjectincreasing the penalties for crimes related to clandestine immigration, introducing the crime of “death or injury as a result of crimes relating to illegal immigration”associated with sentences ranging from 10 to 30 years in prison.

“If the Italian and European institutions really intend to prevent disasters in the Mediterranean, it is essential that they strengthen the search and rescue capacity at sea”, he commented Marco Bertotto, program director of Doctors Without Borders Italy. “Just as after the tragedy of 3 October 2013 in Lampedusa, the government’s response was the launch of what remains the only institutional operation with a specific sea rescue mandate, today an equally strong action is needed, a European commitment that allows for close collaboration between the European institutions, member countries and civil society to address the tragedy of the deaths in the Mediterranean”.