About 700 illegal migrants rescued from a ship near the Greek island of Corfu arrived in Italy yesterday, after their boat was intercepted while “drifting” toward the coast.
Dozens of official cars met the migrants as they arrived in the port of Gallipoli, in the southeast of Italy, early yesterday morning, according to a reporter on the scene.
Police and maritime authorities will investigate how the migrants, reportedly mainly from Syria and including a heavily pregnant woman, came to be hidden on the Blue Sky M as it sailed to the Croatian port of Rijeka.
The boat was boarded by the Italian coast guard late on Tuesday after initially passing an inspection by the Greek navy.
“Coast guard personnel have boarded a cargo ship adrift with 700 migrants,” the Italian navy said in a tweet.
A frigate, a Greek navy helicopter and two patrol vessels were dispatched to rescue the Moldovan-flagged ship after it issued a distress signal in Greek waters and reports emerged of gunmen on board.
However, an inspection of the boat revealed “no [mechanical] problems and nothing suspicious on the boat,” a spokeswoman for the port police said.
Media have speculated that people traffickers abandoned the ship when authorities neared the boat as it crossed the Adriatic Sea between Greece and Italy, but no official confirmation has been given.
The ship was allowed to continue its journey before it was intercepted by Italian coastguards, who suspected it had a cargo of illegal migrants and was heading for the coast on autopilot.
Italy has picked up 2,300 people from troubled boats over the Christmas period, lifting to more than 170,000 the number of migrants from North Africa registered as reaching Italian soil last year.
The country has been struggling to cope this year with a massive jump in the number of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe, the majority of them from war-wracked Syria or Eritrea.
Responsibility for patrolling Europe’s southern shores in theory lies with Triton, a multinational operation run by the European borders agency Frontex.
However, in practice, the Italian navy has continued to carry out most of the rescues, despite officially scaling back its own Mare Nostrum operation at the end of October after failing to persuade other EU governments to help fund it.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
RSS