The Italian military will today launch a humanitarian mission aimed at saving lives in the central Mediterranean, where about 350 asylum seekers have perished since the start of the month.
Details are still sketchy and it is not yet clear how the operation will affect Malta.
The most recent tragedy happened on Friday when a boat laden with around 250 migrants, mostly Syrian refugees, capsized off the coast of Lampedusa. Though 221 migrants were rescued, mostly by the Armed Forces of Malta, at least 34 people were reported dead or missing including a number of children.
We started thinking about it in the days after the Lampedusa shipwreck
A few days earlier more than 300 migrants lost their lives when their boat caught fire near Lampedusa in the biggest tragedy of its kind since that of the Yioham in 1996, which had claimed 283 lives.
In the wake of these tragedies, Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta announced that Italy will embark on a humanitarian mission aimed at limiting further loss of life.
“We started thinking about it in the days after the Lampedusa shipwreck and we have come up with a plan. On Monday, we’ll launch an Italian military humanitarian mission”, Prime Minister Letta was quoted as saying during a debate in Venice on Saturday night hosted by newspaper La Republica.
He said the goal of the mission was to make the Mediterranean Sea safer, especially in those areas which he described as “cemeteries”.
The operation will treble the resources patrolling the southern Italian border.
Italian media reported that unmanned drone aircraft based in Sicily could also be used to identify boats in trouble. In addition to coastguard and frontier police vessels, the Italian navy currently has three ships supported by four helicopters patrolling the area, and two surveillance aircraft with night vision capabilities in support.
The Italian Prime Minister acknowledged the operation would cost “a lot of money” and came at a delicate moment when the Government was taking tough measures to keep spending under control. However, he said that “we cannot wait till April or May for the EU to start moving”.
The precise area to be patrolled has not been made known and it has yet to be seen how the mission will relate to the vast Maltese search and rescue region, which stretches beyond Lampedusa to the west. Nor is it clear if it will have any effect on the way migrants crossing the Mediterranean are handled between Malta and Italy.
A spokeswoman for the Maltese Ministry for Home Affairs yesterday told Times of Malta that the Government had welcomed the initiative but she was not in a position to comment about any potential involvement of the Armed Forces of Malta.
Friday’s search and rescue operation south of Lampedusa was coordinated by the AFM and Malta and Italy have been collaborating closely in rescue missions.
Maltese assets picked up most survivors on Friday while the more seriously injured were flown to Lampedusa on Italian military helicopters.
Meanwhile, another two boats laden with migrants were yesterday being monitored by the AFM until they were intercepted by the Italian authorities.
An army spokesman said a boat with 250 asylum seekers aboard was met by the Guardia di Finanza off the coast of Lampedusa and a second, smaller vessel was escorted to the Italian island by the coastguard after being spotted some 60 nautical miles to the south.
(Additional reporting by Reuters)