Italy
Allegedly, stowaways attempted to take sailors hostage after being spotted on the Galatea Seaways bound for France
Italian special forces stormed a cargo ship en route from Turkey to France after around 15 migrants armed with knives tried to hijack the ship.
The asylum seekers, whose nationality was not disclosed, allegedly snuck onto the roll-on-roll-off cargo ship called Galatea Seaways in hopes of reaching Europe.
The vessel, designed to transport vehicles and flying the Turkish flag with 22 crew members, departed from Topçular in Turkey on June 7 and was en route to Sète in southern France, the Italian Defense Ministry told the press.
On board, however, the stowaways were discovered by the crew and allegedly tried to take some of the sailors hostage inside the bridge with knives, the Ansa news agency said.
The ship’s captain managed to radio for help and send an urgent request to Ankara, which subsequently reported the incident to Italian authorities while the ship was sailing off the Italian coast.
Italian special forces on duty on the Galata Seaways. Photo: Italian Ministry of Defense/EPA handout
“An operation is underway on a ship that was boarded by pirates… The stowaways appeared to be using weapons such as daggers” to threaten the crew, Italy’s Defense Minister Guido Crosetto told reporters. “The San Marco Battalion had to intervene.”
Crosetto added: “The kidnappers are known to be illegal immigrants. Let’s hope it ends as soon as possible without consequences for anyone.”
After a seven-hour military operation, special forces regained control of the ship and reportedly arrested the suspected hijackers, some of whom were holed up in the depths of the hold.
The Italian ministry said that two naval helicopters and boats from the coast guard and the financial police were involved in the operation.
“The ship has now been recaptured and the entire 22-strong crew of the Turkish ship is safe,” the ministry said.
According to ship-tracking website MarineTraffic, the cargo ship is now anchored just outside the port of Naples and there was a heavy police presence in the port, local media reported.
After a similar incident in 2019, humanitarian organization SeaWatch disputed the term “pirates,” arguing that the migrants’ actions were “in self-defense against the deadly consequences imposed on them by Europe’s inhumane border policies.”
Every day, thousands of migrants are pushed to take increasingly dangerous routes to avoid the violent violence of the security forces in the Balkans.
Last February, Bulgarian authorities found 18 dead migrants in an abandoned truck near the village of Lokorsko, 20 km northeast of Sofia.
In 2020, seven North African men boarded a container in the Serbian city of Šid hoping to get out in Milan a few days later. Instead, the container was transferred to a ship at a Croatian port before traveling via Egypt, Spain and across the Atlantic to Argentina, where it was taken upriver to Asunción, Paraguay’s landlocked capital.
The men – crammed into the tiny space between the cargo and the roof of the container – did not survive. Their bodies were finally discovered on October 23, 2020, four months after entering the metal box.
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