450 more illegal migrants discovered off the coast of Italy

(Baonghean.vn) - Early on Friday morning, January 2, Italian coast guard patrols discovered another "suspicious" ship off the coast of Italy. The patrol said the ship was carrying 450 migrants and was abandoned by its crew. According to the Italian Air Force, the ship apparently encountered an accident while trying to approach the Italian coast. At midnight, the boat was located about 65 km from Cape Leuca, a point in southeastern Italy.

Authorities said a Coast Guard reconnaissance plane spotted the ship about 130 kilometers off the Italian coast. The ship, named Ezadeen and flying the flag of Sierra Leone, said one of the men on board radioed to the patrol that they had been abandoned by their crew and that the ship was currently unmanned. According to a website dedicated to maritime traffic, the Ezadeen was headed to the southern French port of Sète.

The latest drifting position of the Ezadeen ship carrying 450 illegal migrants. Photo: Marinetraffic.com

The Italian navy said a plane had been sent to help the men try to regain control of the ship. The Italian navy said they had chosen this option because of “bad weather conditions”. Several doctors from an Icelandic patrol boat were also near the Ezadeen and were trying to help the “passengers” on board.

Two days earlier, the Italian coast guard discovered and rescued the cargo ship Blue Sky M, which was carrying more than 900 illegal migrants, mostly from Syria. If it had not been for the intervention of the Italian coast guard, the “passengers” on board would have been abandoned by the crew in the Adriatic Sea. Currently, more than 900 migrants have safely landed at the port of Gallipoli, Italy. Authorities are still investigating to clarify the above incident.

The increasingly heated war situation in the Middle East has forced millions of people in this region to flee to other countries by all means. Millions of people try to cross borders and one of the routes they often choose is to cross the Mediterranean Sea. In 2014, a series of shipwrecks that killed thousands of people occurred on this route. Recently, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees listed the Mediterranean Sea route as one of the "most dangerous routes in the world".

Chu Thanh– According to LeMonde 2/1