Italian naval personnel boarded a Sicilian fishing boat and took custody of a Libyan soldier they found on board after the vessel was seized overnight near the coast of the chaotic North African state, the Defence Ministry said yesterday.

The stretch of Mediterranean Sea has grown increasingly chaotic in recent years as hundreds of thousands of people risk the dangerous journey to Europe to escape conflicts in Libya, other parts of North Africa and the Middle East.

A Defence Ministry statement said the fishing trawler had been stopped yesterday in the early hours by a tugboat apparently belonging to Libyan security forces around 90 kilometres from the Libyan port of Misurata.

Italian naval personnel subsequently intercepted and took control of the vessel, encountering no resistance from the single Libyan soldier on board, the ministry said.

Libyan soldier on board taken into custody

The Libyan was put on an Italian naval ship along with a Tunisian crew member from the trawler who sustained minor injuries after a gun was accidentally fired, it said.

The Libyan soldier’s current status was not known.

The Defence Ministry said no one was hit by any bullets in the operation to retake the fishing boat.

It was not clear whether the incident would have implications for Italy’s relations with Libya, which has descended into anarchy as two rival governments and various armed factions fight for control. A spokesman for a Sicilian fishing trade association had said earlier that the incident was likely to be the work of pirates. No such attacks have been reported before.

“This is probably an act of piracy as the tugboat that approached the trawler had no Libyan governmental insignia,” the spokesman, Francesco Mezzapelle, told Reuters. He said the trawler was manned by three Italians and four Tunisians.

Armed chaos in Libya has been exploited by migrant traffickers who charge thousands of dollars to mainly sub-Saharan Africans for a passage across the Mediterranean to a better life in Europe.

Around 13,000 people have been rescued at sea over the last week as good weather improved sailing conditions. About 1,000 people are reported to have drowned this year and survivors have spoken of harrowing conditions.