Italy rescues more than 80 migrants from boat in rough seas
- 12 years ago
ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION)
STORY: Eighty-seven migrants were rescued by the Italian Coast Guard on Thursday (September 28) when their boat ran into trouble after leaving the Libyan coast.
Twenty-two of the migrants were women, one of whom was pregnant.
The Coast Guard said an initial phone call warning of a boat in trouble was received from a helpline based in Italy. The caller gave the Coast Guard rescue service the satellite phone number on board the troubled boat. The rescue was then coordinated directly with the boat.
Because of the direct communication, the Italian Coast Guard managed to alert Libyan maritime services, who located the stricken vessel as being in Libyan waters, some 70 miles north of Tripoli.
In rough weather conditions, the migrants, all believed to have come from sub-Saharan Africa, were transferred from their 33-foot dinghy onto an Italian Coast Guard boat.
They will be taken to a holding center on Lampedusa island.
Libya has also long been a popular gathering point from where thousands of African migrants have set sail to cross into Europe via Lampedusa off the southern coast of Sicily.
STORY: Eighty-seven migrants were rescued by the Italian Coast Guard on Thursday (September 28) when their boat ran into trouble after leaving the Libyan coast.
Twenty-two of the migrants were women, one of whom was pregnant.
The Coast Guard said an initial phone call warning of a boat in trouble was received from a helpline based in Italy. The caller gave the Coast Guard rescue service the satellite phone number on board the troubled boat. The rescue was then coordinated directly with the boat.
Because of the direct communication, the Italian Coast Guard managed to alert Libyan maritime services, who located the stricken vessel as being in Libyan waters, some 70 miles north of Tripoli.
In rough weather conditions, the migrants, all believed to have come from sub-Saharan Africa, were transferred from their 33-foot dinghy onto an Italian Coast Guard boat.
They will be taken to a holding center on Lampedusa island.
Libya has also long been a popular gathering point from where thousands of African migrants have set sail to cross into Europe via Lampedusa off the southern coast of Sicily.