Smugglers dangerous new tactic: packing cargo ships with hundreds of migrants, then sending them to crash into coasts
Twice in three days cargo ships with hundreds of migrants on board were sent to crash into European coasts before rescuers intervened
Smugglers who bring migrants to Europe by sea appear to have adopted a new, more dangerous tactic: cramming hundreds of them onto a large cargo ship, setting it on an automated course to crash into the coast, and then abandoning the helm. It happened twice last week in the space of three days, and both episodes could have ended in tragedy if the vessels had not been intercepted at sea.
In the latest such incident, the cargo ship Ezadeen was stopped with about 450 migrants aboard after smugglers sent it speeding toward the coast in rough seas with no one in command. Italian authorities lowered engineers and electricians onto the wave-tossed ship by helicopter to secure it, and the Icelandic Coast Guard towed it to the Italian port of Corigliano late on Friday.
"The use of larger cargo ships is a new trend," said Vincent Cochetel, the UN refugee agency's Europe bureau director.
Children and pregnant women were among the migrants, most of whom were believed to be from war-ravaged Syria. The Sierra Leone-flagged ship apparently set sail from Turkey.
Their requests for asylum will be evaluated; the authorities said.
An Italian coastguard patrol plane had spotted the 66-metre Ezadeen on Thursday about 145km east of Italy's Calabria region and contacted it to see if it needed assistance.