Migrants 'Hijack Merchant Ship That Rescued Them Off of Libya and Are Heading Towards Lampedusa or Malta', Claims Matteo Salvini, Who Vows: 'They'll Only See Italy Through a Telescope'
- The 846-ton tanker El Hiblu1 is registered in the Republic of Palau, Pacific Ocean
- Interior minister Salvini claimed the ship was hijacked after picking up migrants
- They allegedly forced the freighter's crew to turn towards Lampedusa or Malta
- Salvini has repeatedly refused entry to Mediterranean migrants since last year
Daily Mail UK 28 MAR 2019.
A merchant ship has been hijacked by migrants after it rescued them in the Mediterranean, according to reports
Interior minister Matteo Salvini claimed the ship, a 846-ton tanker named El Hiblu 1, had been bound for Libya after picking up the migrants but had been taken over and turned towards Europe.
El Hiblu 1 is registered in the Republic of Palau, an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean.
The ship was on its way to Tripoli, the capital of Libya, from Turkey, on Tuesday but six nautical miles from port it was diverted heading for the north to rescue some migrants off the coast
El Hiblu 1, pictured, is a 846-ton tanker registered in the Republic of Palau, an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean
Salvini, a hardliner who has repeatedly refused entry to Mediterranean migrants, claimed the ship with 108 migrants on board was now heading for Malta or the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Both countries said El Hiblu 1 would not be allowed to enter their national waters.
'We received reports of a pirated ship heading towards Malta or Lampedusa (off Sicily) and we're monitoring the situation,' a Maltese coastguard spokesman told AFP.
Migrants in chaos-wracked Libya face trafficking, kidnap, torture and rape, according to the United Nations and aid groups.
Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, pictured during a live on Facebook, claimed the ship with 108 migrants on board was heading for Malta or the Italian island of Lampedusa
At 4pm, there had been no communication from the tanker for 16 hours, Maritime and Crimean Shipping News reported.
Refusing to let the migrants into Italy, Salvini tweeted: 'They're not shipwrecked, they're pirates. They should know that they will only see Italy with a telescope.'
The Italian news agency ANSA reported that Salvini said: 'It would be the first act of piracy on the high seas, with migrants who have hijacked a ship that had reached six nautical miles [seven miles] off the Libyan coast.'
The ship was on its way to Tripoli, the capital of Lybia, from Turkey, but it changed its direction and started heading north
The agency reports that the migrants had realised they were returning towards Tripoli and had threatened the freighter's commander and crew.
The reported line echoes Salvini's language last year when he said migrants would only see the country 'on a postcard'.
The 46-year-old has spearheaded the migration crackdown since he became interior minister and deputy PM last year.
He has turned away rescue ships operated by foreign NGOs, such as the Aquarius, which was left stranded with 630 migrants last June after being refused entry to Italy.
A merchant ship has been hijacked by migrants after it rescued them in the Mediterranean, interior minister Matteo Salvini (pictured today in Rome) has claimed
Following Rome's increasingly tough anti-migrant stance, boats that pick up migrants making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean increasingly return them to Libya.
Several boatloads of migrants rescued in recent months have refused to disembark in Libya, prompting the authorities there to use force.
Migrant arrivals from North Africa and the Middle East have been sharply reduced since a 2015 peak when Europe faced its worst migration crisis since World War II.
Salvini has accused the rescue missions of playing into the hands of people smugglers.
Pictured: The Aquarius rescue vessel which was turned away by Salvini last June in the populist government's crackdown on Mediterranean crossings
He was sworn in after striking deal to form a government with the Five Star Movement, an agreement that brought Italy a populist government after three months of post-election deadlock.
On Monday Salvini vowed to 'change Europe' after his League party - which he transformed into a national force - won a regional election.
Spain's socialist PM Pedro Sanchez, who also came to power last year, has taken a more liberal approach.
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Survivors Reveal 'Unbelievable' Horrors Faced by Refugees in Libya
- A new study carried out by the Women's Refugee Commission has revealed that migrants travelling to Europe are being raped and tortured
- Smugglers torture migrants and film the scene on Skype to extract ransom money from their families
- Migrants told horror stories, including men having their genitals cut off and mass sexual abuse
- It was reported that men and women are forced to rape others, boys have to rape their sisters and women are abused and raped until they bleed to death
- Men face abuse nearly as regularly as women, according to the new study
- A survivor from Gambia said: 'If someone had told me this before, I would never have believed it. You can only believe it if you have seen it with your own eyes.'
- Sarah Chynoweth, the study's lead researcher, said: 'If a man tries to escape, all other men are forced to rape him. People are regularly punished, forced into submission and controlled.'
- Previous studies have found that nearly all women who cross from North Africa have been raped or sexually abused along the journey
- The area around Bani Walid is notorious for its clandestine prisons, where migrants are detained while smugglers try to extract payments from them before they are able to continue their journey
- Last May, more than 100 migrants and refugees broke out from one of the lockups, fleeing under their captors' gunfire
- 33 per cent of sexual assault survivors who came forward last year on the Aquarius were male, compared with just three per cent in 2017
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Rescued Migrants Hijack Merchant Ship off Libya
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