Passengers are seen on the the Blue Sky M cargo ship, carrying an estimated 900 migrants, as the vessel arrives at Gallipoli harbor in southern Italy on Dec. 31, 2014. (Reuters)
ROME — Smugglers who bring migrants to Europe by sea appear to have adopted a new and more dangerous tactic: cramming hundreds of people onto a large cargo ship, setting the vessel on an automated course to crash into the coast, and then abandoning it.
It happened twice this week in the span of three days, and both episodes could have ended in tragedy if the vessels had not been intercepted.
In the latest incident, the cargo ship Ezadeen was stopped with about 450 migrants aboard after smugglers sent it toward Italy’s coast in rough seas with no crew. Italian authorities lowered engineers and electricians onto the wave-tossed ship by helicopter to secure it, and the Icelandic coast guard began towing it toward port in Italy. It was expected to arrive Friday night.
Children and pregnant women were among the passengers, most of whom were believed to be from war-ravaged Syria, Italian coast guard Cmdr. Filippo Marini said. The Sierra Leone-flagged ship apparently set sail from Turkey, he said.
An Italian coast guard patrol plane had spotted the 220-foot Ezadeen on Thursday, about 90 miles east of Italy’s Calabria region. The plane’s crew tried to make contact to see whether the ship needed assistance.
“There was no crew, and one migrant, a woman, took the call,” Marini said. “She said: ‘We are alone. Please help us. We are in danger.’ ”
Two days earlier, the Blue Sky M, a Moldova-flagged cargo ship carrying about 800 migrants, was similarly abandoned by smugglers who locked the ship on automatic pilot on a course to crash into a stretch of Italy’s southern coast, authorities said. Despite strong winds and high waves, coast guard officers were lowered onto that ship and managed to take control of the steering about a half-hour before it was to strike the coast, Marini said.
While smugglers have long crammed fishing boats, and even dinghies, with migrants headed for Europe, only to abandon them at the first sign of trouble, Marini said it appears that traffickers are employing an even more dangerous tactic.
“Certainly it’s very dangerous, because a ship with no one on the command bridge is like a bomb that will strike up against the reefs,” Marini said.
It was not clear in either of this week’s cases whether the smugglers jumped ship or simply hid among the passengers. Italian authorities said they were questioning passengers on the Blue Sky to see whether any of the smugglers tried to pass themselves off as migrants.
More than 170,000 migrants were intercepted or needed rescue by Italian naval, coast guard and air force patrols last year.
And it isn’t only Italian authorities intercepting migrant vessels.
In November, Greek authorities rescued nearly 600 migrants from a 230-foot cargo ship that lost engine power off the Greek island of Crete. Greek authorities arrested 19 of those on board as suspected smugglers. Most of those passengers were Syrians fleeing war in their homeland and were believed to have been charged $2,000 to $6,000 each for passage to Italy.
There was no indication that the vessel had been set on a course to crash into the coast. But the case illustrated what authorities said appears to be another recent development.
“The use of larger cargo ships is a new trend,” said Vincent Cochetel, the U.N. refugee agency’s Europe bureau director.
William Spindler, a spokesman for the U.N. agency, said on BBC radio that the organization is aware of four incidents in the past two months in which cargo ships carrying hundreds of migrants were abandoned by their crews off the coast of Italy.
“The money involved is huge,” Spindler said. “People are desperate, and they are willing to pay huge amounts of money for the privilege of traveling in these awful conditions and reaching Europe, where they hope to find safety and a better life.”