BRINDISI, Italy - Italian sailors took control Friday of a merchant ship that had been abandoned by its crew and left to power towards the country's jagged coast with 450 migrants aboard.
While sailors boarded the Ezadeen and set up a tow some 40 kilometres (25 miles) off southern Italy, another crew brought the burned-out ferry Norman Atlantic into the Italian port of Brindisi, six days after a fire killed 13 passengers and forced the rescue of 477.
Italian prosecutors fear that the ferry could contain the bodies of still undiscovered illegal immigrants and unregistered passengers, potentially raising the death toll far higher.
In the Ezadeen drama, six coastguard officers were lowered from a helicopter onto the deck of the Sierra Leone-registered merchant ship as it approached Crotone, off the heel of Italy, the navy said.
Once under control, the Italian coastguard began towing the 73-metre-long (240-foot-long) livestock vessel towards the Italian port of Corigliano Calabro, where it was expected to arrive late Friday or early Saturday, the navy said.
The ship had been en route from Famagusta in northern Turkish-controlled Cyprus to the southern French port of Sete, according to a shipping website.
The same site also noted, however, that the Ezadeen had begun its voyage in October from the Syrian port of Tartus. Thousands of refugees who made it to Italy this year fled war-torn Syria, though most came via North Africa.
Before it came to a halt, the nearly 50-year-old Ezadeen had been moving at a brisk seven knots, and was spotted by a coastguard plane 80 miles offshore shortly after nightfall.
A woman refugee on board was able to operate the ship's radio and told the coastguard that the crew had jumped ship, Italian navy spokesman Captain Filippo Marini said.
We are alone, there is no one, help us! the woman cried, he said.
The coastguard asked for assistance from Icelandic patrol boat Tyr, which was in the area on a mission with Frontex, the European Union's border agency.
The Tyr was able to draw alongside the ship, but its speed and rough weather conditions made boarding impossible.
Once the Ezadeen had run out of fuel, five Tyr crew members were winched on to the merchant ship by helicopter to care for passengers until Italian coastguard officers arrived to take control.
The migrants aboard were visibly distressed but overall in good medical condition. They have been provided with food, water and basic medical assistance, a Forex statement said Friday.
AFP
