Italian Home Affairs Minister Roberto Maroni this morning implied that Malta was to blame for the loss of some 200 migrants who are missing at sea off Lampedusa.
He told the Italian Chamber of Deputies that the Maltese authorities were alerted to the presence of the boat by the migrants themselves using a satellite phone. The Maltese authorities then informed Rome, that they did not have naval assets for a rescue.
He said the boat was in the Maltese search and rescue area and although Italy did not have the responsibility to conduct the rescue, it felt it should do so for moral reasons.
The Italian authorities last night said that 53 migrants were rescued after the boat capsized in rough weather at dawn yesterday. It is feared that the boat carried as many as 300 migrants. They left from Libya two days earlier.
Maroni said migrant departures from Libya had intensified. Migrants, he said, were leaving from the same areas which were the departure points before a repatriation agreement was reached between Italy and Libya.
The Italian minister criticised the EU for only making €25 million available to tackle the migration problem. What was needed to tackle the problem, he said, was to close the source of migration.
He said the EU needed to take action in the countries from what the migrants departed, not only in terms of security, but also economic development.
Italy would be issuing temporary residents’ permits to Tunisian migrants who had relatives in other EU countries, allowing them to circulate within the Schengen area.
He said that at a meeting of European Home Affairs Ministers on Monday, Italy would insist that the burden sharing mechanism should be triggered because of the emergency.
Malta has already called for the activation of the mechanism.
Yesterday’s migrants’ boat accident took place some 40 miles south west of Lampedusa, and about 100 nautical miles south of Malta.
Malta was lambasted yesterday and again this morning on several Italian TV discussion programmes.
On previous occasions, Malta has insisted that while it coordinates rescue efforts within its search and rescue area, primary responsibility to rescue rests with the closest vessel to the scene, and the migrants must be taken to the nearest port of call.
Maroni said hopes of finding more surivors were fading by the hour.
Three Italian coast guard vessels and two planes, a Maltese boat and two commercial vessels are taking part in the search operation.
Italy's coast guard said helicopter pilots who flew over the area said they had seen "dozens" of bodies near the boat including small children.
"Our hope is of finding a survivor, maybe someone who held on to a piece of the wreckage," said Pietro Carosia, head of the coast guard in Lampedusa.
Television images on Wednesday showed shaken-looking survivors wrapped in thermal blankets being helped off coast guard boats on Lampedusa.
Some, including a heavily pregnant woman, were taken to hospital.