Yesterday evening, a Coast Guard patrol boat towed a fishing boat carrying about 150 migrants to the port of Roccella Jonica. The boat was ten miles off the coast of Marina di Gioiosa Jonica when it was reached by the Coast Guard after receiving a call for help launched via a phone held by the migrants, who claimed to be Iraqi and Afghan nationals.
Also yesterday, two alleged smugglers, of Turkish origin, were stopped by the Ragusa Police and the Pozzallo Finance Police. The two men are now locked up in the Ragusa prison. According to investigators, they transported 51 migrants aboard a sailing ship. Each migrant would have paid the criminal organization a sum varying between 5.000 and 6.000 euros and, and after being loaded into vans and traveling for about 12 hours, they reached the south-west coast of Turkey and were picked up on a sailing ship with which they then sailed to reach the Italian coasts.