ITALY: Navy accused as immigrants drown
01 March 2002
On 7 March, a boat carrying dozens of mainly African immigrants sank after being broken in two by a wave in a rough sea as it was being towed towards the Sicilian island of Lampedusa by a local fishing boat that responded to its distress call. Eleven passengers survived out of a total reported to have been over 80: twelve bodies were recovered and the rest are missing, presumed dead. The Elide fishing boat was the main participant in the rescue attempt although a nearby navy ship, the Cassiopea, had been warned about the struggling ship but failed to take charge. Francesco Giacalone, captain of the Elide told Il manifesto: "The navy could have done more...when we spotted the shipwrecked persons, we immediately warned the...navy. They sent a helicopter. And when the Cassiopea arrived, we asked them to tow them. It looked to us like the safest way. They [refused], saying that we were going well. A quarter of an hour later the boat sank". The Elide crew rescued nine people and the navy ship eventually sent a launch saving another two. The Cassiopea's captain argued that the poor state of the 10-metre vessel was such that approaching it with a big ship could have wrecked it, although rescue launches were available. An investigation has been opened into the deaths and failure to provide assistance.
The Italian defence ministry dismissed criticism and interior minister Scajola said that managing immigration was "a European problem". He claimed that detention centres are needed in "transit countries for illegal immigration, so that these people may be held and identified", calling for a common European border police (Berlusconi and Schroder echoed these views on 11 March 2002 in Trieste), and adding that the new Italian law on immigration, widely criticised as xenophobic, "will make us safer and better protected from illegals who come here to commit crimes" (see Statewatch vol 11 no 6).
On 28 March 1997, the navy came under strong criticism after the sinking of the Kater i Rades by a navy frigate, in which 120 people reportedly lost their lives. The two ships collided while the navy frigate was conducting aggressive manouvers known as "harassment" and lost control in the rough sea. The navy was being used to patrol the seas in order to prevent ships loaded with "illegal" immigrants from reaching Italy. The new Bossi-Fini immigration bill (see Statewatch vol 11 no 6) that is undergoing parliamentary scrutiny would introduce this role for the navy as a standard practice.
A few days later, on 11 March, the corpses of six Albanian immigrants were recovered in a rescue operation conducted by two navy helicopters in which 22 persons were saved. Their dinghy set sail from Valona in Albania and was overturned by the rough sea.
On 11 November 1998, Salvatore Orani, who was the head of Lampedusa's port authorities until 1 August 2001, described the Channel of Sicily as the "graveyard of the Mediterranean". The sea in this area is notoriously rough, and Orami believes that "over 10% of those who leave don't arrive at their destination, [they] die in the sea", citing the worried calls from family members who saw them leave, failed rescue missions after distress calls and corpses fished out of the water by fishermen's nets as evidence.
Il manifesto 9-10.3.02, 12-13.3.02; Repubblica 18.4.02.