Sawt Falasteen - Italian officials to testify in trial over deadly migrant shipwreck

The disaster off Calabria was Italy's worst in a decade, and set off a firestorm of criticism against far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's tough stance on the thousands of migrants who arrive by boat each year from North Africa.

Thirty-five children were among those killed when the boat crashed on the rocks off the southern tourist town of Cutro on February 26, 2023.

On the opening day of trial in the courtroom of Crotone, all defendants -- four officers from the Guardia di Finanza (GDF) financial crimes police, which patrols Italy's seas, and two members of the coastguard -- said they planned to testify, Italian news agency ANSA reported.

They are accused of involuntary manslaughter and "culpable shipwreck", a crime in the Italian penal code punishing negligent actions or omissions leading to a shipwreck.

The overcrowded boat had set sail from Turkey carrying people from Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Syria. Around 80 people survived.

Dozens of bodies and the wreckage of the boat later washed up along the beach. The victims' coffins filled much of a nearby sports hall -- with white caskets for the children -- as relatives from around the world arrived to claim their dead.

Authorities say more people may have perished in the shipwreck. Their bodies have never been found.

- Four hours -

The charges against the officers relate to a rescue operation that never came, despite officials having been aware of the boat for hours.

A plane from European Union border agency Frontex spotted the boat just after 11:00 pm (2200 GMT), some 38 kilometres (24 miles) off the coast and flagged it to Italian authorities.

But a vessel subsequently dispatched by the GDF turned back due to the bad weather, and the migrant boat smashed against rocks near the beach some four hours later.

Prosecutors accuse both the police and coastguard of poor communication and dragging their feet after the boat was first assessed as meriting a maritime police operation.

Bad weather and worsening conditions should have prompted its reassessment as a search-and-rescue operation, they say.

One defendant "ignored the offer of assistance" from the coastguard -- which has sturdier vessels capable of operating in bad weather -- and failed to monitor the approaching boat, meaning that no one helped guide it to a safe harbour, prosecutors charge.

Such monitoring would also have alerted authorities to the many migrants on board, prompting an emergency operation.

All those on trial worked from various control centres far from the site of the shipwreck.

- More migrants feared dead -

Charity groups that operate search-and-rescue boats in the Mediterranean, including SOS Humanity and Mediterranea Saving Humans, are civil parties to the case.

They say the tragedy points to the policy of Meloni's hard-right government of treating migrant boats as a law enforcement issue rather than a humanitarian one.

Human Rights Watch's acting deputy director for Europe and Central Asia, Judith Sunderland, said it was not only the individual officers on trial, but also "Italian state policies that prioritise deterring and criminalising asylum seekers and migrants over saving lives".

Visiting Cutro after the tragedy, Meloni put the onus for the disaster squarely on the shoulders of human traffickers, announcing toughened penalties for those who cause migrant deaths.

A Turkish and a Syrian man were sentenced to two decades in prison in 2024 for being the migrants' traffickers.

In December 2024, two Pakistanis and a Turkish man were also convicted, receiving sentences from 14 to 16 years.

Around 66,000 migrants landed on Italy's shores last year, similar to 2024, down from more than 157,000 in 2023, according to Italian government officials.

At least 1,340 people died while crossing the central Mediterranean last year, according to the UN's International Organization for Migration (IOM).

On Monday, the agency said it feared for the lives of over 50 people missing after a shipwreck off the coast of Libya during the recent Storm Harry.

E.Qaddoumi--SF-PST