Meloni defends authorities in boating accident – meanwhile 70 deaths from skin cancer in US President Biden removed

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has defended the police and coast guard for their actions on the night of the shipwreck that killed dozens of migrants. Nearly a week after the accident off the coast of the southern Italian region of Calabria, Meloni said on Saturday: “Our authorities have not been approached by Frontex about an emergency.”

The European border control service Frontex captured the wooden boat from an airplane on the evening of February 25 and reported the sighting to Rome. A few hours later the boat sank in high waves.

Meloni stressed to reporters during a trip to Abu Dhabi: “We were not told that this boat is in danger of being shipwrecked.” Rome has already explained that that is why it was not the coast guard – and their ships equipped for emergencies – that went out that night, but the financial police, who are responsible for border matters. However, when the sea was rough, their two ships quickly returned to port without discovering the migrant boat.

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The public prosecutor’s office is now investigating the incident. Meloni stated that he was “a little touched” by the criticism that Italy had deliberately slipped that night. “Does anyone in this country really think that this government has deliberately allowed more than 60 people to die, including children?” she asked. “Does anyone think the government could have saved 60 people, including a child of about three whose body we found today but didn’t? I beg you…!”

While Meloni was speaking in Abu Dhabi, search teams found the lifeless body of a boy on a beach several miles from the accident site. The body of another child had already washed up in the morning. The number of casualties rose to 70, a Carabinieri commander confirmed on request. More people are missing; about 80 people survived the accident.

On the criticism that Meloni has not yet traveled to the scene of the accident, the head of government said that the responsible minister of the interior was in Calabria the first day after the disaster. Recently, President Sergio Mattarella also visited the city of Crotone, where the dead lie in coffins in a sports hall. Meloni announced that one of the next Council of Ministers meetings will be held in that area and that he would like to speak on migration there.

(dsc/sda/dpa)