Malta and Italy played a part in the “harrowing” tragedy that led to the death of 63 migrants at sea last year when both countries failed to launch a search and rescue operation, according to a Council of Europe report.
The report exposes “a catalogue of failures”, saying no one went to the rescue of the boat despite a distress call logged by the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC), which pinpointed the boat’s position.
Italy eventually informed their Maltese counterparts about the “left-to-die boat” that was in the Libyan search and rescue zone. There is no evidence that Libya was informed about the situation.
The 72 Sub-Saharan migrants on board had left from war-torn Tripoli in March. The boat spent 15 days at sea and drifted back to Libya with only nine survivors.
The COE’s Parliamentary Assembly investigated the matter and found that the people could have been rescued if all those involved had complied with their obligations.
“Notwithstanding that Rome and Malta’s MRCCs knew, or should have known, that there was no Libyan SAR capacity (due to the war), neither felt an obligation to mount a full search and rescue operation as the ship in distress was not within their SAR zone.
“The boat in distress was thus left floating in a responsibility vacuum,” the report said.
Malta argued that its helicopters could not travel such long distances and its boats usually required from 20 to 24 hours to reach the end of its SAR zone.
“The Maltese search and rescue authorities... never considered starting a search and rescue operation as they considered the Rome MRCC, the first MRCC informed, to be responsible on the basis of maritime law,” the report said.
The government insisted yesterday that Malta acted in support of MRCC Rome by repeatedly attempting to contact a satellite phone used and trying to pinpoint the location of the boat.
“All the necessary possible action which surpasses the legal obligations incumbent upon Malta was taken by the Maltese authorities in this case,” the government said.
According to the COE report, Rome said priority was given to the large number of incidents occurring within Italy’s SAR zone rather than incidents occurring elsewhere. The Italian authorities did not consider themselves as the responsible authority because the boat was not located in their SAR zone.
Even Nato was criticised by the report, pointing out that it had declared the region a military zone under its control but then failed to react to the distress calls sent out by the Rome MRCC. Moreover, at least two military vessels involved in Nato’s operations were in the boat’s vicinity when the distress call was sent.
Although it was known that many refugees were leaving Libya by the Mediterranean sea route to reach Europe, there seemed to be no working agreement between the SAR authorities and Nato headquarters in Naples.
However, the report said, since it was known that the Libyan SAR zone was not covered, Italy, as the first state to receive the distress call, should have taken responsibility for the coordination of the SAR operation.
The report concluded that “there were failures at different levels and many opportunities to save the lives of the people on board the boat were lost”.
It drew up recommendations for member states that included filling the vacuum of responsibility for an SAR zone left by a state that could not exercise its responsibility for search and rescue and ensure clear and simple guidelines on what amounted to a distress signal.
It also recommended seeing why commercial vessels failed to go to the rescue of boats in distress.
This included dealing with the disagreement between Malta and Italy as to whether disembarkation should be to the nearest or safest port.
Harrowing tragedy
The small rubber boat left Tripoli on March 26, 2011. The Sub-Saharan passengers, 50 men, 20 women and two babies, were accompanied to the boat by Libyan militia. They were boarded by the smugglers who removed most of their water supplies and food in order to get more people into the boat, the report found.
After over 18 hours at sea with almost no petrol, little food and water and no sight of land, the captain called an Eritrean priest living in Italy by satellite phone, sending a distress alert.
The Italian MRCC was informed. It plotted the location of the boat and sent out a large number of calls to ships in the area to look out for the boat.
Within a few hours of the first distress signal, a military helicopter hovered over the boat and provided water and biscuits and indicated to the passengers that it would return. It never did.
The boat also encountered at least two fishing vessels, neither of which went to its assistance.
The boat drifted for several days. With no water and food, people started to die.
On about the 10th day, when half of the passengers were dead, a large aircraft carrier or helicopter-carrying vessel sailed near it, close enough for the survivors to see the sailors on board looking at them with binoculars and taking photos.
The naval vessel sailed away. The boat eventually washed up on the Libyan shores after 15 days at sea. The 10 survivors were imprisoned, and one of them died from lack of medical care. Eventually, nine survivors were released and later fled the country.
In 2011, at least 1,500 people died while tying to cross the Mediterranean sea.