A merchant ship sent by the Libyan Coast Guard reached the damaged boat which had been 60 kilometers from Misurata for hours, and the hundred shipwrecked people who risked dying at sea set course for Misurata. This was announced by Palazzo Chigi in a note. "Help us, soon I will not be able to speak anymore because I am freezing". This was the content of the last dramatic phone call to the Alarm Phone number from the boat with about 100 people on board in distress off Misrata.
It is Alarm Phone, the call center of volunteers who collect rescue requests at sea, to launch the alert, also explaining that the passengers on the boat have asked not to inform the Libyan authorities of their position. The first call is at 11 am, in a subsequent one the migrants said they also have a child on board "unconscious or deceased" and that panic is mounting among them.
"They don't answer from Tripoli"
“Rome and Malta have instructed us to contact the Tripoli Coast Guard as the competent authority” for the rescue, the Alarm Phone continues, adding that so far “we have not received any response from the Tripoli Coast Guard. We can't even confirm that they got our message. We are calling all the phone numbers, so far without success ”. In the meantime, the situation becomes "desperate": "Soon I will no longer be able to speak because I'm freezing", is the appeal of one of the people on board, while Malta, Alarm Phone always says, "gave us a eighth issue of the Tripoli Coast Guard. It's ridiculous. One would be enough if they answered ". In any case, the NGO Sea Watch ship is heading towards the one in distress, although it warns that “we are about 15 hours away. We cannot cover the Mediterranean alone, where people are left to die ”.
The Pope prays for victims and "responsible"
A drama before which the Pope's voice rises. “I have two pains in my heart, Colombia and the Mediterranean. I think of the 170 victims of the shipwreck in the Mediterranean who were looking for a future for their lives. Victims perhaps of traffickers. We pray for them and for those who have responsibility for what happened ”, Pope Francis says at the Angelus.
The line of government does not change
A pressure that does not change the government's line. "What is happening in the Mediterranean is the result of the actions of some countries, which then also make us morality", counterattacks Luigi Di Maio. "Macron first makes us moral and then continues to finance the public debt with the money with which he exploits African countries", again accuses the deputy premier M5s. "If we want to continue talking about the effects we continue with the rhetoric of the dead at sea which obviously are a tragedy and have all my condolences, but we must talk about the causes because if today there are people who leave - he underlines - it is because some European countries with France in mind, they never stopped colonizing Africa ”. Nor does Matteo Salvini change his attitude. "I feel guilty? No, the fewer people leave, the fewer people die ”, explains the Minister of the Interior. “The more people leave, the more people die. The ports are and remain closed ”, he reiterates.
Palazzo Chigi: in contact with Libya to intervene
“We are in constant contact with the Libyan Coast Guard to carry out this further intervention and secure the migrants who are on board”, says Palazzo Chigi. “After several days of rough seas - it is noted in the same note - the traffickers of human beings have taken advantage of this weekend of calm sea to act again. Currently, a rubber dinghy with about a hundred people in Libyan territorial waters is still at sea - it is still observed - about 60 miles from the mainland ”.