Boat load of migrants adrift off Italian coast

(Vatican Radio) Another cargo ship full of migrants – apparently abandoned by its crew – is adrift in rough seas 40 miles off Italy’s southern coast. 

Listen to this report by Tracey McClure: 

The Italian air force has dispatched a helicopter to help the Ezadeen,  a Sierra-Leone-flagged vessel, so that Coast Guard officials can be lowered to secure the ship and doctors can also go aboard. As many as 450 migrants are believed to be aboard the ship. 

It has been a busy week in Italian waters.  Nearly 1,000 migrants, mostly Syrians, arrived in Italy Wednesday after the cargo ship they were traveling on was abandoned by smugglers in the Adriatic sea.   Italy rescued or discovered some 170,000 migrants and asylum seekers at sea last year as they tried to get into Europe.

The Norman Atlantic, an Italian ferry en-route from Greece to Italy’s port city of Ancona, caught fire Sunday in the Adriatic.  Rescue operations in rough seas eventually brought to shore 477 survivors.  At least 11 people were killed in the disaster.

Greek and Italian tallies of the passenger list and the list of survivors aboard the ferry, however do not match. The ferry is being tugged to an Italian port where investigators will search for any further bodies aboard and inspect it for clues to the cause of the fire and to determine who is to blame for the tragedy.