MOSCOW, December 31 (Sputnik) — A large freighter filled with up to 700 refugees docked in the port of Gallipoli, Italy on Wednesday morning after being taken over by the Italian coast guard, which subsequently commandeered the ship to prevent it from crashing into the Italian coast, the BBC reports.
The Moldovan-flagged ship Blue Sky M, carrying hundreds of what appear to be Syrian and Kurdish refugees, had apparently been abandoned by its crew, and was reported to be set on autopilot, heading toward the Italian coast. The human traffickers who man refugee vessels often jump ship as a tactic to evade arrest; they are the ones that organize the flow of migrants from the war-torn regions of North Africa and the Middle East to Europe.
Italian port authorities dispatched two helicopters with six coast guard officials to the vessel, commandeering it when no crew could be found. Italian Coast Guard spokesman Filippo Marini told the Associated Press that the Coast Guard had "avoided disaster" by boarding the ship and interrupting its programmed route when it did, as the autopilot route would have resulted in the ship crashing into the coast.
The BBC notes that Italian ambulance crews had been standing by at the Gallipoli dock, with reports of frostbite among people on the ship. A local eyewitness told the BBC that there may have been up to 800 or 900 people onboard the vessel, and that four of five people on board may have been found dead.
The Blue Sky M incident comes days after an Italian-flagged ferry with 478 people on board, which was traveling from Greece to Italy, caught fire in the same area, leading to a large-scale rescue operation by Italian and Greek coast guard and military vessels. At least 10 people are said to have died in that incident, while 419 were saved and dozens reported missing.
Over the course of the past several years, Italy and Greece have seen a massive surge in migrant refugees from North Africa and the Middle East. The United Nations' Refugee Agency has said that between January and November, nearly 160,000 illegal immigrants had arrived by sea to Italy, and 40,000 more to Greece, after making the often-perilous journey across the Mediterranean.
