Nave-Dattilo

The 'Luigi Dattilo' was among the units searching for bodies of migrants after the sinking of a sailing yacht on June 17, 2024, about 200 km from Calabria. While six bodies were recovered by Italian authorities, the search continued as of June 19 to find the 58 other people missing in the tragedy, including many children. The authorities did not specify the nationality of the recovered bodies, nor their age. The semi submerged sailboat was still visible on the surface of the water. An information point has been set up at the port of Roccella Ionica, to provide assistance to the relatives of the victims who were beginning to arrive in Calabria. On the day of the sinking, the Italian Coastguard was able to rescue 11 people, including two women and two 12-year-old children. One woman, initially rescued, ultimately died during the rescue. The survivors, all treated in hospitals in the region, were in serious condition with multiple traumas, burns and serious dehydration. A 12-year-old girl, admitted to Locri hospital, lost her parents and her little sister in the tragedy. One of the castaways arrived unconscious. When he woke up, he started crying, he couldn’t stop, he kept repeating the same words in a language that no one understood. The castaways were from Iran, Syria and Iraq. The boat had left Turkey on June 9 and had been taking on water for three or four days. According to testimonies from survivors, the ship began to sink after the engine exploded, which caused a fire on board. As the boat sank into the water, they tried to climb to the highest point of the sailboat. A French sailboat, sailing in the area, raised the alert. Report with video: https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/57884/naufrage-en-calabre--apres-la-decouverte-de-six-corps-58-migrants-toujours-portes-disparus

On Aug 31, 2023, the 'Nave Dattilo' set sail from Lampedusa with 597 migrants on board, of the 1,126 guests of the hotspot, with the destination Reggio Calabria, where it was due to arrive in the afternoon of Sep 1. The planned transfer to the accomodation ship 'Galaxy' was not carried out, while the police will soon escort about 180 migrants from the Imbriacola district who will be boarded on a flight, organized by Oim, bound for Bari. In the evening, at the disposal of the Prefecture of Agrigento, another 200 migrants will be moved with a dedicated ship, who will arrive on Sep 1 at dawn in Porto Empedocle.

On Aug 10, 2023, a crew member of the 'Nave Dattilo' committed suicide, while the ship was engaged in the Sicilian channel in assisting a small boat loaded with migrants. The vessel had to stop the rescue activities. For this reason, the 'Ocean Viking' was authorized to carry out several interventions: in 48 hours, 15 boats that were attempting the crossing from Sfax, in Tunisia, towards Lampedusa, were rescued. The NGO ship was assigent to Porto Empedocle in the Agrigento area as a safe port, where she will disembark 371 people and then set sail towards Civitavecchia to conclude the disembarkation of the total 623 migrants she has on board.