Mediterranean, yet another massacre that could have been avoided

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https://www.valigiablu.it/mar-mediterraneo-naufragio-47-migranti-guardia-costiera/

It's a terrible déjà vu.A new shipwreck in international waters that brings with it the usual dynamics:absurd hesitations and disputes between states which then translate into delays in rescue and rescue operations.In fact, 30 hours passed between the Alarm Phone report (a call center that reports emergencies at sea managed by the NGO Watch The Med), on the night of March 11, and the intervention of the Italian authorities, after the unavailability and silence of the Libyan and Maltese maritime authorities.The budget is dramatic:17 survivors, 30 missing in the cold sea of ​​March.

According to the reconstruction of the Coast Guard, Alarm Phone sent a report to the National Maritime Rescue Coordination Centers in Rome, and to the Libyan and Maltese authorities on the night of March 11, communicating the presence of a vessel with 47 people on board in the area Libyan SAR.Subsequently the boat was spotted by the "ONG Seabird 2" aircraft which sent a distress call and contacted the merchant ship "Basilis L" which headed towards the small boat without being able to start rescue operations due to the weather conditions.As explains the journalist Sergio Scandura a Radical Radio, “the scene [for the freighter] immediately appeared risky with waves exceeding 3 metres.Freighters cannot provide rescue in these conditions because there is the risk that during rescue operations the small boat will crash into the larger ship.The merchant ships serve more as protection to mitigate the effect of the waves while waiting for assets with lower decks and better equipped to provide assistance at sea to arrive".

The rescue operations started a day and a half later, in the now usual rebound of the intervention between Libyan, Maltese and Italian maritime authorities.

As stated in the Coast Guard statement, the National Center of Rome intervened only after the request of the Libyan authorities who declared themselves unable to intervene due to lack of naval assets.At that point, an emergency satellite message was sent from Rome to all ships in transit and the operations center of the Rome Coast Guard sent three merchant ships present in the area towards the adrift boat.During the transhipment of people in the rescue operations, conducted by the motor vessel “Froland”, writes the Coast Guard, “the small boat capsized:17 people were rescued and recovered, while around 30 others were missing."The motor vessel now heads towards the Porto Palo and Pozzallo area.

“You cannot let 30 hours go by knowing that Libya and Malta are unreliable”, observes Scandura again on Radical Radio.As explains Fulvio Vassallo Paleologo in a recent article on Melting Pot, according to the IOM (International Organization for Migration), "Libya is not a safe port and the number of people brought back ashore by the Libyan Coast Guard does not coincide with that of those present in detention centers and this opens up speculation.These people may be sold for temporary labor or even subject to ransom demands from their family to be released."While Malta, "has never signed the 2004 amendments to the international SAR and SOLAS Conventions and is therefore not obliged to indicate a safe port of disembarkation (POS) to the numerous boats rescued in the SAR area under its jurisdiction".

And then with respect to Libya, adds Scandura, "it must be considered that Tripoli (the authority contacted for the rescue intervention) and Benghazi (off which the small boat was located) are two different administrations and until recently in conflict".For this reason it is not surprising if "Tripoli does not intervene and no response comes from Benghazi".

Finally, it cannot even be said that since it was a Libyan SAR zone, the responsibility for the intervention lay with Libya.The SAR zones "do not mark a limit to the jurisdiction of the States, but simply prefigure the competences and responsibilities attributed to the state authorities.(...) According to international conventions (UNCLOS, SAR, SOLAS) beyond the distinction of SAR zones, all coastal states informed of a rescue event have the obligation to coordinate interventions and take prompt action, even outside of one's area of ​​responsibility", explains Vassallo Paleologo.Therefore, Italy could intervene immediately in light of the conditions in which the punt found itself.Among other things, Scandura underlines, the area where the boat was located is "covered by several Italian and European military ships".I'm there European mission "Irini" which patrols the area to monitor the arms embargo imposed by the UN on Libya and the "Safe Mediterranean" operation which has tasks of "presence, surveillance and maritime security in the central Mediterranean Sea near the Libyan coasts".

The knot that comes to the fore is the same as always, or rather from directive signed in 2005 by the then Minister of the Interior, Giuseppe Pisanu:“Monitor the boat, rescue only in case of imminent danger” and “Scrupulously follow the operational instructions in order to prevent the illegal entry of immigrants into the national territory”.

Yet, after all the mistakes that caused the death of 74 people (the sea continues to return bodies), after the rebounds of responsibility, after the obscene press conference (which ended with karaoke for Salvini's birthday) and after the horror (and also the pain) of the various declarations - from "They must not leave" to "We will chase the smugglers all over the globe", in these last few days the Coast Guard had returned to saving, or rather had begun to communicate its interventions again, after five years of silence, almost as if he wanted to distance himself from the responsibilities of the chains of command in rescue operations.

In recent days the Coast Guard has announced the rescue at sea of ​​approximately 1,200 people who were on board three fishing boats.The first call for help was received from Alarm Phone.The vessel had also been identified by a Frontex plane.

487 people, including 38 minors, coming from Pakistan, Egypt, Syria, Afghanistan and Nepal, arrived in the port of Crotone on the night between 10 and 11 March on board the fishing boat they were traveling on, towed by a tugboat because the conditions of the sea ​​had not allowed their transfer to the rescue boats.

Another 800 shipwrecked people were rescued on two other fishing boats.The rescue operations, made difficult by the unfavorable weather and sea conditions and the overloading of the two boats - the Coast Guard announced - were coordinated by the Dattilo ship (Coast Guard) which recovered 500 people on board one of the two boats.The 379 people who were on the other boat were rescued by the Sirio ship (Navy) and disembarked at the port of Augusta.

Finally, the Diciotti (Coast Guard) ship brought another 584 people to safety at the port of Reggio Calabria.The ship, which was heading towards Lampedusa to transfer several hundred migrants hosted in the first reception facility on the island, was diverted south of Lampedusa for three different rescue operations at sea.

The Coast Guard, as we have seen, witnessed its rescue activities on multiple channels.Here is the video of the intervention coordinated by the Dattilo ship:

Here are other videos on the complicated rescue phases of the last few nights:

On its Facebook page, the Coast Guard relaunched the TG1 service which reported the rescue of the 1,200 shipwrecked people:


The attempt is evident not to "be made a scapegoat for political choices which have even imposed silence, in recent years, on the operational activities of one of the most appreciated rescue forces in the world, whose operations and operational capabilities are studied by the rescuers of every continent”, as observe the journalist Nello Scavo on Future.Which continues:

And the Cutro massacre also forcefully highlighted the imposition of silence, which did not allow public opinion to know in real time how many and which operations were underway, despite the repeated requests of journalists now kept away, always by political order, even from the docks where the shipwrecked people saved by state rescuers are disembarked.

“The film released by the Coast Guard, which summarizes the difficult joint operations to intercept and rescue some boats in the Ionian Sea – continues Scavo – is proof of how rescue and investigative activities can be carried out simultaneously, as happened in the past, not risking sacrificing dozens of human lives to give priority to investigations which are still carried out thanks to video cameras on aircraft and patrol boats with which the movements of the smugglers can be filmed".

Meanwhile, on March 12, a new Coast Guard SAR operation was reported 14 miles south-south of Cape Spartivento.

In a few hours, thousands and thousands of people arrived who self-organized and arrived in Lampedusa on small boats, without the presence of NGO ships or the use of smugglers, further testimony to how reality then comes to dismantle theses that pop up every now and then – such as that according to which NGOs play a role as a pull factor for migration – despite having no supporting evidence and having been dismantled several times.

As ISPI analyst Matteo Villa observed a few days ago, "since the beginning of the government, 3,382 migrants saved by NGOs have been assigned ports on average 900 km away.Meanwhile, 39,570 migrants have landed in Sicily or Calabria."

Meanwhile, an official Frontex source, he said to Euractiv that the European Union border agency analyzed in real time the data intercepted from the migrant boat that sank in Cutro together with two Italian official representatives at the Frontex headquarters in Warsaw.

At the time of the interception, the live streaming of the sensors was shared live with both the Italian authorities and the Frontex headquarters in Warsaw, reinforced by two Italian experts, in the analysis of various data and identification marks, the Frontex source said:“We have a law enforcement expert [from the Guardia di Finanza] and a SAR (search and rescue) expert from the Coast Guard.They are there to give advice in their areas of expertise, suggest where to monitor and provide the Frontex team leader with additional information if necessary.”

Words that cast doubt on the position maintained to the bitter end by Italy, which maintains that it was not adequately alerted on the night of February 25, a few hours before the shipwreck on the southern coast of Calabria, which caused the death of over 70 people and many minors.

The errors, flaws and falsehoods of the government's version of the Cutro massacre

Preview image:Screenshot video frame Avvenire via YouTube

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