When the Sierra Leone-flagged merchant ship Ezadeen limped into the Calabrian port of Corigliano Calabro yesterday with its cargo of approximately 450 people, it provided further proof not only that the multimillion-dollar business of boat-people smuggling has changed tactics but also that it continues to flourish.
The Ezadeen, ostensibly en route from Cyprus to the south of France, became stranded 90km off the Calabrian coast after it had been abandoned by its crew prior to running out of fuel.
Italian coastguard spokesman Filippo Marini told Sky Italia television yesterday that so far little was known about the boat or its passengers.
“We know that it left from a Turkish port and was abandoned by its crew,” he said. “When we hailed the ship to ask about its status, a migrant woman responded, saying, ‘We are alone and we have no one to help us’.”
This is the third time in the last two weeks that a decommissioned merchant ship has been abandoned off the Italian coast by its crew of boat-people smugglers. Two weeks ago the Carolyn Assense carrying more than 800 migrants was towed into the Sicilian port of Siracuse while on Wednesday of this week the Blue Sky M, also with more than 800 people on board, landed in the Puglia port of Gallipoli.
On all three occasions, the smugglers had set the boat on automatic pilot heading straight for the Italian coast before abandoning it. Given that both the Carolyn Assense and the Blue Sky M were carrying mainly Syrian refugees, it is probable that yesterday's "arrival" from Cyprus will also be carrying Syrians escaping the conflict back home.
Such boats tend to sail in Turkish or Greek waters without arousing suspicion, passing for normal merchant ships. However, once in Italian “save and rescue” operational waters, they sound a “mayday” via satellite phone to a humanitarian association, or directly to the Italian coastguard. At that point, the smugglers either abandon ship or mix in with the migrants. In the chaos and confusion of such landings, the smugglers can be hard to identify and often escape arrest.
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees this week suggested that Italy’s boat people crisis is destined to get worse. With conflicts to the south (Libya), to the east (Ukraine) and to the southeast (Syria/Iraq), huge numbers of war refugees are attempting to reach southern Europe by sea.
Syrian migrants
The commission claims that more than 207,000 people made clandestine crossings of the Mediterranean in 2014, almost three times higher than the previous high of 70,000 in 2011. Italian authorities estimate that Italy alone rescued 170,000 people in the last 14 months.
They also point out that in the last five months they have rescued 15 ships similar to the Ezadeen. All of them are decommissioned boats that can be abandoned. They carry mainly Syrian migrants, who are wealthier than their African counterparts, many of whom are forced to travel on smaller, rickety boats.
The International Organisation for Migration claims that the price of passage is on average €6,000 a head, netting as much as €12 million over the last 10 days for the organised crime smugglers.