ROME The Diciotti ship arrived in Crotone in the evening with 5 of the bodies recovered after the shipwreck of a sailing boat about 120 miles from the Calabrian coast in the Ionian Sea last week: to date the tragic toll is 35 bodies recovered (here is the latest update from the Prefecture of Reggio Calabria).
On the afternoon of 16 June – is the reconstruction of the rescue phases provided toHandle by the Coast Guard – Alarm Phone communicated with an email to the National Sea Rescue Coordination Center (MRCC) of the Rome Coast Guard that it had been contacted by relatives of people who were on board a vessel in difficulty, underway in the Ionian Sea. The report spoke of 67 people on board, including 20 children, indicating the date of 13 June as the last contact. A position of the boat is also indicated, again referring to June 13th. Having then received the report from Alarm Phone, on 16 June the Coordination Center proceeded with the necessary checks and transmitted a ‘circular’ message, in which it asked the units navigating near the indicated point to pay maximum attention and to contact the MRCC in case of sighting of the reported vessel.
Furthermore, the Coast Guard ordered the start of search operations by diverting a merchant vessel sailing nearby to the reported area. At the same time, it sent a class 300 patrol boat to the area and, subsequently, also a ‘Manta Atr 42’ aircraft. The searches they initially gave negative results. On the night between 16 and 17 June, the “mayday” launched by a French ship, which had intercepted the half-sunken sailboat along the route, reached the Coordination Center, recovering 12 shipwrecked people at that stage. One woman died during the operations, the 13 survivors were transported to Roccella Ionica. Searches in the area continue with aerial overflights. There are currently 36 confirmed victims, including a woman, rescued together with the 11 survivors, but who died immediately after landing.
