Four Tunisians arrested for piracy over engine thefts from migrant boats
Source: The Guardian
Four Tunisians arrested for piracy over engine thefts from migrant boats
Men held in Sicily accused of intercepting vessels and demanding cash, phones and vital engines
Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo
@lorenzo_tondo
Mon 31 Jul 2023 15.20 BST
First published on Mon 31 Jul 2023 13.35 BST
Police in Italy have arrested four Tunisians on charges of piracy, accusing them of intercepting migrant boats in the central Mediterranean and stealing their engines, leaving the vessels adrift.
Investigators said the four men would identify boats carrying asylum seekers to Europe and, with the help of other vessels, blockade them in international waters off the Tunisian coast, before boarding them to rob the passengers of money and phones and the boat of its valuable engine.
One migrant described an attack: “They cut us off course, as if they wanted to ram us. Then they boarded us. They were armed with knives and threatened us that if we didn’t give them the engine they would hurt us. We had no choice.”
Salvatore Vella, the head prosecutor in Agrigento, Sicily, said authorities had become increasingly aware of apparent engine thefts. “We had noticed that half of the small iron boats recently used by migrants departing from Tunisia to reach Europe, and which were rescued by the Italian coastguard, were without engines.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/31/tunisians-arrested-piracy-raids-migrant-boats
Non-walled link: https://archive.li/USqHu
