ROME, MARCH 10 – The Coast Guard is intervening to rescue about 1,300 people on boats who are trying to reach Italy. Three patrol boats are operating about 70 miles south of Crotone to rescue a boat with about 500 migrants on board. Other units of the Coast Guard – Nave Dattilo and 3 further patrol boats are providing assistance to two other boats with a total of about 800 migrants on board which are, instead, about 100 miles from Roccella Ionica. The rescue operations, coordinated by the Rome Coast Guard Operations Center in an area under Italian responsibility, are particularly complex due to the large number of people on board the adrift boats. The operations will continue in the next few hours also with the use of an ATR 42 aircraft, a Nave Corsi and a Nave Visalli of the Coast Guard. And the Sirio ship of the Navy is also intervening, called by the Coast Guard “in difficulty”, as the Defense Ministry reports. The military ship, he adds, “is proceeding at the maximum speed allowed to provide the assistance requested”. (HANDLE).
(ANSA)
