Dozens of migrants dead

Italy: Military officers on trial after shipwreck

The coffins of the victims - including numerous children - two days after the accident in a sports hall in Crotone(Bild: APA/AFP or licensors)

After traffickers from Turkey and Pakistan, six members of the Italian military must now also stand trial for the fatal accident involving a ship with around 175 migrants on board off the coast of Calabria. They are accused of negligent homicide, as the public prosecutor's office in Crotone announced on Wednesday.

The members of the border guard and the coast guard are accused of failing to react appropriately and in good time to the emergency situation of the overloaded refugee boat. When the ship with around 175 migrants on board sank off the Calabrian coast in February 2023, 94 people drowned, including many children. Others are considered missing. A judge must now decide whether to open a trial against the six military personnel.

Rescue workers recovered masses of bodies from the sea after the boat accident.(Bild: Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

"Coast guard could have intervened"
In the indictment, the public prosecutor's office points out that an aircraft from the European border protection agency Frontex alerted the Italian authorities to the ship off the Calabrian coast on the evening before the accident. Overall, the "application of European and national laws was obviously neglected". The ship sank at dawn just a few dozen meters off the coast. Special coast guard boats were able to intervene, the investigators added.

Long prison sentences for traffickers
Three smugglers had already been sentenced in December. The two Pakistanis and one Turk were sentenced to 16 and 11 years in prison respectively for aiding and abetting illegal immigration, which led to the deaths of the migrants, but were acquitted of the additional charge of negligent shipwreck.