Italy's coastguard accused of 'multiple manslaughter' over migrant shipwreck deaths

The migrant rescue charity Sea-Watch has filed a criminal complaint to Italian prosecutors accusing the nation's coastguard of negligence and "multiple manslaughter" over its response to a shipwreck off the island of Lampedusa that left 21 people dead.

The German NGO said it had asked the public prosecutor's office in Agrigento, Sicily, to investigate the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the 21 migrants in a shipwreck involving a boat that had departed from Libya in early September.

A Sea-Watch monitoring aircraft spotted a migrant boat in distress with 28 people on board near Lampedusa on 2 September and reported it to the authorities, but the Italian coastguard did not deploy a rescue ship until 4 September, the charity said.

The authorities rescued seven people — all Syrian men — just 18.5 kilometres from the island on 4 September, but the 21 deaths were a result of Italy's failure to provide immediate assistance, according to Sea-Watch.

The NGO's complaint, which was filed together with three of the survivors and the son of a man who drowned, alleges that Italy's coastguard refused to perform its official duties and committed "multiple manslaughter due to negligence".

"The impunity of those responsible must end," Sea-Watch spokesman Oliver Kulikowski said on Tuesday. "Those who fail to fulfill their duty to rescue must be brought to justice."

Neither Italy's coastguard nor the public prosecutor's office in Agrigento could immediately be reached for comment.

Thousands dead and missing over the years

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's right-wing administration has cracked down on irregular migration by sea from Africa in recent years.

Since she took power in 2022, Meloni's government has made it increasingly tough for charities such as Sea-Watch to operate ships in the Mediterranean by imposing various restrictions on their activities.

Meloni has also worked with the EU to strike deals with Tunisia and Libya to curb migrant flows, and this year signed an unprecedented agreement with Albania to outsource the reception and repatriation of migrants, although that plan has been thwarted twice by Italian judges in recent weeks.

More than 157,000 migrants arrived in Italy by sea last year, up from around 105,000 in 2022, but those numbers have dropped so far in 2024, according to UN figures.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) says that more than 1,700 people have died or gone missing to date this year in central Mediterranean.

Since 2014, the UN agency has registered at least 20,000 deaths and disappearances, making the ocean the most deadly migrant crossing worldwide.