Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni intervened for the first time at the weekend in the debate about a boat accident off the coast of Calabria that has now claimed at least 70 lives. Eighty migrants survived the accident in the early morning of 26 February, a few metres from the beach near Cutro in southern Calabria. About twenty missing people are still being sought.

Matthias Rüb

Political correspondent for Italy, the Vatican, Albania and Malta, based in Rome.

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The explanation that the Italian coast guard had made no attempt to come to the aid of the people on the overcrowded cutter was "as simple as it was tragic," Meloni said on Saturday evening during a visit to the United Arab Emirates: "We have not received any distress signals from the European border and coast guard Frontex. We have not been told that this boat risks a shipwreck."

She dismissed accusations that the authorities had reacted too slowly or not at all: "We did everything we could to save lives after we were made aware of the problem. Is there anyone in this country who really thinks that this government deliberately allowed more than 60 people to die, including children? I beg you!" said Meloni in Abu Dhabi. For the next meeting, she will invite her cabinet to Calabria to discuss the problem of immigration.

The Interior Ministry said that a Frontex patrol aircraft had photographed the cutter about 25 kilometers off the coast on February 22 at around 30:74 p.m., reported the sighting, but did not transmit an alarm call. Therefore, two patrol boats of the financial police set sail, but they soon returned to the port due to high waves. The Coast Guard, whose boats can also be used in storms, became active for the time being.

The cutter with the refugees crashed about five and a half hours after the sighting by Frontex on a rock off the coast, only then were apparently distress signals set. The public prosecutor's office in Crotone took up investigations into the course of the accident.