450 more illegal migrants found off Italy

(Baonghean.vn) - Early Friday morning, January 2, Italian coast guard patrols discovered another "suspicious" boat off the coast of Italy. The patrol said the boat was carrying 450 migrants and had been abandoned by its crew. According to the Italian Air Force, the boat 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 boat about 80 miles off the coast of Italy. The boat, named Ezadeen and flying the flag of Sierra Leone, was reported by one of the men on board over the radio to the coast guard that they had been abandoned by their crew and that the boat 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 navy said the decision had been made because of “bad weather conditions.” 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. More than 900 migrants have now safely landed at the port of Gallipoli, Italy. Authorities are still investigating to clarify the incident.

The increasingly heated war situation in the Middle East has forced millions of people in the 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 across 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