DThe Italian government wants to take drastic penalties against people smugglers in the Mediterranean. According to a draft law presented to the cabinet on Thursday, people smugglers should be sentenced to 20 to 30 years in prison if several people are killed during a crossing they are responsible for. If a person dies, the sentence should be 15 to 24 years. In addition, the Italian Navy is to support the Coast Guard in monitoring the relevant routes of boat migrants across the central and eastern Mediterranean.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had moved Thursday afternoon’s regular cabinet meeting from her office in Rome to the coastal town of Cutro in southern Calabria. On February 26, a refugee boat sank off the Mediterranean coast, killing at least 72 people, including 16 children and young people. 80 people survived. Most of the fatalities and survivors came from Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as from Syria, Iran and Somalia.
The public prosecutor’s office in the provincial capital of Crotone is investigating two Turks and two Pakistanis on suspicion of having steered the boat with more than 150 people on board from the Turkish coast near Izmir to Calabria. On Wednesday, Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi again rejected allegations during parliamentary hearings that the Italian authorities had not done everything to help the people on the boat in heavy seas before the cutter crashed on a rock a few meters from the shore.
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