Italy saves 970 migrants abandoned by smugglers

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By FRANCES D'EMILIO

ROME (AP) — The Italian Coast Guard rescued 970 migrants Wednesday after smugglers put their cargo ship on automatic pilot heading straight for a crash into the Italian coast and abandoned the command.

The Coast Guard officials said the migrants, most believed to be Syrians and including many children and pregnant women, arrived safely in Gallipoli, in Italy's southeastern Puglia region, before dawn Wednesday. More than 100 migrants were treated for hypothermia.

"It was a race against time," said Coast Guard Cmdr. Filippo Marini. "The ship was only a few (nautical) miles away from the coast of Puglia" on Tuesday night when six Coast Guard officials were lowered by helicopter onto the bridge of the Moldovan-flagged Blue Sky M to try to correct the ship's course.

Marini said the smugglers apparently had left the engine blocked on automatic pilot at a speed of 6 knots (nearly 7 mph) into the coast.

FULL story at link.



The Moldovan-flagged Blue Sky M carrying hundreds of migrants arrives at the southern Italian port of Gallipoli, some 170 kilometers (108 miles) south of Bari, Italy, Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2014. Italian authorities took control Tuesday of a cargo ship carrying hundreds of migrants after the crew disappeared and set it on a programmed route to crash into a coast, officials said. The alarm was first raised about the Blue Sky M after a passenger sent a distress call earlier Tuesday when the ship was off Greece. The operation came two days after a Greek-operated ferry caught fire between Greece and Italy with the loss of at least 11 lives, prompting a two-day search and rescue effort. (AP Photo/ Ivan Tortorella)

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20141231/eu--italy-abandoned_migrants-5f34a95cf0.html

[Posteritatis]

1. To say their navy/coast guard's been working its ass off would be a huge understatement

Say what you will about immigration/refugee policies and public attitudes for a lot of the Mediterranean countries in general, but Italy's navy and coast guard have saved tens of thousands of lives written off by the smugglers in the last several years alone.

[Blue_Tires]

11. Ironically, the Italians are starting to debate

whether they should curtail their naval rescue operations to territorial waters only (heard on the BBC)...While they should be lauded for their bravery and efforts in saving lives, it's plainly obvious that this is only going to encourage more "derelict" ships that nobody else wants to "rescue"

[closeupready]

15. "derelict" ships with passengers fleeing "persecution", like "rape", "murder",

and "genocide". Civilized countries are beacons of refuge BECAUSE they value human life.

[Blue_Tires]

17. this is the piece I was referring to:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30660777

You realize that had the crew stayed the Italians wouldn't have let them dock at any port, right? The crew knew that by jumping ship they were pretty much 'forcing' the italians to take them in...

[closeupready]

18. Do you have a larger point, though, is my real question here?

I don't want to seem hostile or accusatory, but on other boards, I'd presume your line of questioning implies that your bottom line is that you oppose granting asylum to refugees, or that if it must be done, it should be done as parsimoniously as possible, so as to make their lives difficult, and thus, discourage others back home from .... fleeing persecution and genocide.

I know you can't subscribe to that idea, so if you could explain your point better, I would be grateful. Thanks!

[Blue_Tires]

19. My larger point is while taking in the refugees is admirable,

is there a "breaking point" where the Italians say "no more"? And if so, where exactly is that breaking point?

[closeupready]

20. Taking in refugees is admirable AND obligatory.

To draw an imperfect analogy, providing refuge is akin to paying workers a living wage - it is a practice founded on a set of values which serve to guide humanity and societies.

We've seen in the US over the last 30 years (or perhaps more) the erosion of the middle class due to greed - greed is insidious for a lot of reasons, but one of them is that by definition there are no limits to the acquisition of wealth; thus, for example, workers from year to year get a marginally cheaper health insurance that raises the cost to workers, and this is done for no other reason than to improve profits. So it is with raises - they don't keep pace with real inflation. Bonuses get reduced.

Anyway, getting back to your question, people fleeing persecution and finding a place of refuge must never be put back in harm's way. It applies to every last legitimate refugee, forever.

Did you ever see "Voyage of the Damned"?

[mercuryblues]

2. where do

these smugglers even get these ships?

[Sunlei]

5. ports and harbors and routes between have thousands of transport 'ships'

[Posteritatis]

6. Smallish, end-of-life ships can be astonishingly cheap

Think five digits rather than seven or eight (or freebies in the case of abandoned ones).

Especially if you're only planning on using them once.

[krispos42]

3. Will the Italians block the roads used by the Italian Coast Guard...

...to transport the rescuees to another facility?

I doubt it. Which makes them a thousand times better than Republicans.

[pampango]

14. If any Italians do that, they will undoubtedly be Italian "republicans".

Their far-right, as in practically every country, is not just anti-immigrant but anti-refugee and, in Europe especially, anti-Muslim.

I agree. It is doubtful that Italians will do what republicans have done here.

[Sunlei]

4. Bravo to Italys' Navy and Coast Guard!

Hope our trillion dollar "HomeLand Security" pays attention to how EASY it is to get a large container ship and pre-program it to crash into land.

[ffr]

7. Is this the new old way of dumping unwanted peoples off

on sympathetic countries? Sure, load up a junky boat with as many as you can and send them adrift. If they sink, oh well. If the boat runs aground somewhere else, perfect! The outcome doesn't matter, so long as they don't come back.

"most believed to be Syrians and including many children and pregnant women, arrived safely in Gallipoli, in Italy's southeastern Puglia region..."

Must be these people were more of a financial drag on their country moreso than the cost of the boat. Now they're Italy's problem to deal with.

[Posteritatis]

9. All the smugglers would care about is their initial boarding fees

Everything else is just a cost to them - including recovering the ship in cases like these.

There's no social/political agendas on top of that, generally - just get what money they can and then on to the next batch.

[pampango]

13. You realize it is the refugees themselves, not "their country", that pay the smuggler fees?

Must be these people were more of a financial drag on their country moreso than the cost of the boat. Now they're Italy's problem to deal with.

That sounds like a national government made a financial decision to pay smugglers to transport refugees. If you have evidence of that it would be a really good read. Please post.

I seriously doubt that people living in refugee resettlement camps are paying smugglers to take them to Europe in order to help the country they have taken refuge in. They have much bigger and more immediate concerns.

[appalachiablue]

8. So the cargo is migrants who pay smugglers to illegaly transport them via ship to a safe state.

If the smugglers are spotted by officials they leave or blend in with passengers to avoid detection. Kudos to the brave and effective Italian naval authorities involved in these human rescue efforts. Another recent foreign news report I saw covered ME and N. African migrants waiting in northern France for transport to Britain that's not going well because of conflicts between authorities.

[JI7]

12. some smugglers have no intention of even trying to get migrants to the other countries

they just want the money and once they get that they leave.

similar happens with migrants who try to come to the US from the southern borders.

[Nihil]

16. Hardly surprising though

> Another recent foreign news report I saw covered ME and N. African migrants
> waiting in northern France for transport to Britain that's not going well because
> of conflicts between authorities.

Britain doesn't want even more jobless, illiterate & uneducated people than they
already possess (in abundance) and France is pissed off at having to feed & house
them in the meantime.

(France didn't used to care as long as the open door into their country matched
the open door through to Britain but now they are feeling the same way about the
"upstream" countries like Italy - happy to be a stepping stone but definitely not
wanting to be the new host.)

In the middle you find the scum who take money from desperate people then
just dump them somewhere.

[question everything]

10. At some point, the whole world wll have to deal with this )nt)