A jungle of skills and the absence of an SOS : these factors could encompass what is emerging as a flop in the rescue chain in the case of the sinking of the caique loaded with migrants which caused the confirmed death of 67 people , including numerous children , and a still unspecified number of missing off the coast of Cutro, in Calabria .

Victims to whom the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, pays tribute today.

The Head of State has arrived at the sports hall where the funeral home has been set up. For him, a few minutes of recollection in front of the coffins.

On the shipwreck front, to make the reconstruction of the facts even more difficult, there was also a close exchange of responsibilities involving Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi and Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency . On all this, the Prosecutor of Crotone has not yet formally investigated the failure to provide assistance, even if it is not excluded that it will do so soon and yesterday the investigating judge issued 3 arrest warrants for the alleged smugglers .

THE RECONSTRUCTION - Everything revolves around what happened in a space of time of about six hours or from 11.03 pm on Saturday evening, when a Frontex plane signaled the presence of the boat 40 miles off the coast of Crotone after having sighted it half an hour earlier, until about 4 on Sunday, which is the moment in which the boat ends up against a shoal. All in the absence of an SOS and the activation of search and rescue procedures. Added to this is the alert message launched 23 hours before the shipwreck - and 17 hours before the gulet was sighted - by the Coast Guard Maritime Rescue Coordination Center (IMRCC) «to all ships in transit in the Ionian Sea » for a boat in difficulty which is not the gulet. It remains to be clarified why the Sar event was not activated and why the rescue operation did not start.

The Frontex e-mail did not indicate the number of presences on board and also spoke of " good buoyancy ". And it is precisely on this that Minister Piantedosi is aiming to explain the reason for the lack of assistance.

«Frontex had not signaled a situation of danger or distress on board, highlighting the presence of a person above deck and others below deck and good buoyancy. Then there was a worsening of the weather conditions» he said in a hearing to the Constitutional Affairs Commission of the Chamber. And the Coast Guard spokesman Cosimo Nicastro, guest of Bruno Vespa, spoke of an initially non-dangerous situation. «The shipwreck that took place in Calabria is an unpredictable tragedy in the light of the information that was received. The elements of which we and the Guardia di Finanza were aware - he added - did not suggest that there was a dangerous situation for the occupants. No telephone reports had arrived either from on board or from family members. And at the same time, the boat, which had left Turkey 4 days earlier, had not reported any information to the other homologous coast guard organizations it crossed».

JUNGLE OF EXPERTISE – The Coast Guard then confirms that that night there was a " conversation " between the colleagues of the Port Authority of Reggio Calabria and those of the Guardia di Finanza who had intervened. The latter inform the Coast Guard that "the two units that were at sea were returning due to adverse weather conditions and that there was no known position of the vessel". But Frontex replies: "It is always the competent national authorities that classify an event as search and rescue". Then, around midnight, two units of the Guardia di Finanza set to sea, in law enforcement, that is, a police operation and not a rescue one. The lookouts, however, collide with heavy seas - force 4 - and go back. A second release will also be aborted. Through it all, Coast Guard units, which have larger patrol boats, remain at their moorings. "Larger patrol boats that could have navigated even in force 8 seas," says the commander of the Crotone port authority Vittorio Aloi. But, explains the officer, "the rules of engagement are a very complex reconstruction" also because "often they do not come from the ministry to which I belong but from that of the interior": therefore "the operations are carried out by the Gdf until they become Sar" . But the commander does not clarify the reason for the missed Sar event. While the reason for the absence of SOS from the boat becomes clear: the smugglers had a frequency jammer and did not want to be intercepted , hoping to get away after disembarking.

The gulet, therefore, while the Italian authorities act on the basis of the jungle of skills and rules of engagement, continues its navigation towards the Crotone coast. Around 4 o'clock the arrival near the beach, the collision with the shoal, the boat that shatters and the humanity that traveled on board ends up in the sea. First aid arrives at 4.30, and it is two carabinieri who recover about twenty bodies and save two people. Then reinforcements arrive with fishermen and other law enforcement and the Coast Guard. In the report attached to the investigative documents, the Crotone port authority writes that it received the first report «at 4.37». Only at "5.35 the first Coast Guard land patrol, which arrived on the spot, reported numerous people in a state of hypothermia on the beach, dragged ashore by the surf as well as some corpses". That's when Operation Sar kicks in. But for at least 67 migrants, rescue is now useless.

(Unioneonline/vl)

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