Europe’s shame | Report reveals failings by Nato, coast guards led to ‘usless death’ of migrants

Adds the government's statement at 4:45pm

Failures by Nato and European coast guard authorities caused the needless death of more than 60 migrants who were left adrift in the Mediterranean after fleeing chaos in Libya last year, a report has concluded.

The African migrants - namely Eritreans - were forced to endure an horrific experience in which one by one they succumbed to hunger, thirst and exhaustion, the report by the Council of Europe concluded.

Their fate was sealed after coast guards - including Maltese and Italian  - issued ambiguous and confusing instructions, while Nato warships in the area failed to respond to their distress signals.

The immense suffering and tragic loss of life could easily have been avoided, the report said.

The boat, packed with 72 migrants, set sail from the coast of Libya last March, most likely heading for Italy or Malta.

But after its engines failed, it drifted in the Mediterranean for some weeks, before being pushed by currents back to the Libyan coast.

By that time, all but nine of the passengers were dead, including 20 women and two babies.

Survivors spoke of seeing a military helicopter arriving on the scene, dropping emergency supplies of food and water, but then disappearing never to be seen again. They also said they drifted to within a short distance of an unidentified warship.

Malta's rescue centre followed up reports sent to Rome by Moses Zerai, an Eritrean Priest who runs the Habeshia foundation which takes care of Eritrean refugees, who had received desperate messages from migrants on board the ill-fated boat.

Rome in turn had passed on the messages to Malta's Armed Forces rescue coordination centre, while also having Nato's high command headquarters in Naples and other relevant agencies informed.

Another alert message was sent in the form of a Hydrolant navigational warning the following day, which would have been received by all ships in the area: "Vessel, 68 persons on board [actually 72], in need of assistance ... assist if possible."

Nato initially denied having any knowledge of the incident, but later it admitted its high command had received a fax from Rome MRCC raising the issue of the migrant boat and said it forwarded the information to all vessels under its command.

MaltaToday's video-interview with a survivor rescued by Malta's Armed Forces denouncing NATO for not assisting her boat

That would have included the Mendez Núñez, a Spanish frigate that was only a few miles from the boat at the time, but the Spanish defence ministry denied receiving any communications on the matter.

But Nato's high command in Naples allegedly failed to pass on the distress signals to war ships which were in the area to enforce an arms embargo against the regime of Col. Gaddafi.

Italian and Spanish ships were particularly close and ideally placed to go to the aid of the crippled boat, the report said.

"Nato declared the region a military zone under its control but failed to react to the distress calls sent out by Rome MRCC," said the report.

 Tineke Strik, the Dutch MP, author of the report and a member of the council's committee on migration and refugees, said the tragedy marked "a dark day for Europe".

"My inquiry has focused on one particularly tragic incident, in which 63 people died, to try to establish who bears responsibility for their deaths. I have been deeply shocked by what I have learned," Strik said.

The nine-month report calls for a comprehensive review of search and rescue procedures in the Mediterranean and demanded that Nato launch an inquiry into the affair.

Nato has claimed that none of its vessels or aircraft made contact with the stricken refugee boat.

Meanwhile, this afternoon the government said that the report on the plight of migrants who were not rescued for two weeks was confused about Malta's role in rescue coordination

"The report in question causes some confusion regarding the role of Malta's Rescue Co-Ordination Centre (RCC) in the tragic incident it refers to. The Safety of Life at Seas Convention (SOLAS) and the Search And Rescue Convention (SAR) unequivocally lay down the international legal framework in search and rescue operations," the government said.  

The statement stressed that the ill-fated boat was never within Malta's Search and Rescue Region (SRR) which is controlled by Malta's RCC. "Indeed, both positions reported by the satellite phone on board put the boat to be very well-within the Libyan SRR on the 27 March 2011 when the ordeal started," the government added.

The government added that the CoE Report clearly states that RCC Malta was not the first rescue coordination centre to have received information about the boat in question. "This is relevant since Article 6.7 of the International Maritime Organisation's Guidelines on the treatment of persons rescued at sea invariably states:

When appropriate, the first RCC contacted should immediately begin efforts to transfer the case to the RCC responsible for the region in which the assistance is being rendered. When the RCC responsible for the SAR region in which assistance is needed is informed about the situation, that RCC should immediately accept responsibility for co-ordinating the rescue efforts, since related responsibilities, including arrangements for a place of safety for survivors, fall primarily on the Government responsible for that region. The first RCC, however, is responsible for co-ordinating the case until the responsible RCC or other competent authority assumes responsibility.

The government explained that at the same time of these events, RCC Malta and the Rome Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre were also cooperating on a further three reports of boats carrying persons in the Central Mediterranean, some of which had been reported by satellite telephones and others which had been sighted by NATO units engaged in operations north of Libya. In all three of these cases, all persons aboard were accounted for.

"In view of the above, and the fact that the stricken boat remained in the Libyan Search and Rescue Region, RCC Malta acted in support of MRCC Rome (which was the entity co-ordinating the operation) by repeatedly attempting to contact the satellite phone in question and trying to pinpoint the location of the boat. All the necessary possible action which surpasses the legal obligations incumbent upon Malta was taken by the Maltese Authorities in this case," the government said.