Migrants have hijacked a merchant ship which had earlier rescued them in the Mediterranean Sea and forced the crew to put the Libya-bound vessel on a course north towards Europe, the Associated Press reported on Thursday.
Italian media reports said the migrants took control of the ship six miles from the Libyan coast on Wednesday.
Matteo Salvini, interior minister of Italy, identified the vessel as the Turkish oil tanker El Hiblu 1. Salvini said the tanker had rescued about 120 migrants.
He described the incident as “the first act of piracy on the high seas with migrants” as alleged hijackers.
The ANSA news agency quoted Salvini, who heads the Anti-Migrant League Party as saying: “Poor castaways, who hijack a merchant ship that saved them because they want to decide the route of the cruise.”
Salvini, who has been at the center of a number of international rows over his refusal to allow migrant ships to dock in Italian ports, described the hijackers as “pirates” on a social media message, BCC reported on Thursday.
“They are not shipwrecked but pirates, they will only see Italy through a telescope,” Salvini wrote on his Facebook page.
Mediterranea, a private group that operates a rescue ship and monitors how governments treat migrants, urged compassion for the migrants on the hijacked ship and said it hoped European countries would act “in the name of fundamental rights, remembering that we are dealing with human beings fleeing hell.”
A spokeswoman for Malta’s armed forces confirmed the ship had been hijacked and informed that Maltese authorities were monitoring the vessel’s progress and it would not be allowed to dock in Malta.
Malta’s army took control of small tanker hijacked by migrants
The Armed Forces of Malta (AFM) said in a statement on Thursday that Maltese soldiers have taken control of a small tanker that was hijacked by migrants it had rescued off Libya, according to a Reuters report on Thursday.
The Maltese army stated that one of its patrol boats stopped the vessel from entering Maltese waters and a special operations team was then dispatched to board and secure the vessel.
The team, which was backed by two fast interceptor craft, another patrol boat, and a helicopter, secured the ship that is now being escorted to Valletta harbor to be handed over to the Malta police for further investigations.
The post Rescued migrants hijack ship off the Libyan coast appeared first on IPA NEWS.
from IPA NEWS https://ipa.news/2019/03/28/rescued-migrants-hijack-ship-off-the-libyan-coast/
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