Crew retakes boat from Libyan

Refugees picked up in Mediterranean waters wait to board a cruise ship Friday on the island of Lampedusa in southern Italy for transfer to a facility in Sicily. The flow of foreigners attempting the risky crossing from Libya to Italy has continued. In a related development Friday, an Italian fishing boat’s crew overcame the seizure of its vessel by armed Libyans in waters where thousands of people have been stranded and rescued.
Refugees picked up in Mediterranean waters wait to board a cruise ship Friday on the island of Lampedusa in southern Italy for transfer to a facility in Sicily. The flow of foreigners attempting the risky crossing from Libya to Italy has continued. In a related development Friday, an Italian fishing boat’s crew overcame the seizure of its vessel by armed Libyans in waters where thousands of people have been stranded and rescued.

ROME -- The crew of an Italian fishing boat turned the tables on armed Libyans who tried to seize their vessel at sea Friday, the Italian navy said, describing a confused episode that ended with the navy taking control of the vessel and of one of the Libyans.

The episode took place in the Mediterranean off the coast of western Libya, in a stretch of sea where thousands of people have been rescued in recent weeks from decrepit vessels as they tried to make their way from Libya to western Europe.

According to the navy, the fishing boat was in international waters about 55 miles northwest of the port of Misrata, which is controlled by one of the most powerful of Libya's warring militias.

Armed Libyan men on a tugboat stopped and boarded the fishing boat, demanding that it go to Misrata, according to the Sicilian fishing cooperative to which the boat belonged. One of the Libyan gunmen was left on board the boat and the rest departed.

The seven crew members then overpowered the Libyan man, retook the helm and set sail for Italy, the cooperative said. Officials confirmed that the boat was already on its way home when an Italian naval vessel intercepted it. Naval personnel "boarded the Italian ship and took control," the navy said, and the Libyan man was taken into custody.

The Libyan version of events was considerably different. Jamal Naji Zubia, a spokesman for one of the country's two rival governments -- the one based in Tripoli -- said in a short statement that "an Italian fishing boat is caught by the Libyan coastal guards, Misrata branch, breaching the Libyan sovereignty of fishing rights." He added that "the boat is in Misrata now for investigations, then released after."

Misrata is one of Libya's main commercial centers, and the city's militias dominate the political faction that seized control of Tripoli, the capital, last year.

Along with their allies among the country's moderate and extremist Islamist groups, the Misratans are fighting a civil war against Libya's internationally recognized government, which has taken refuge in the eastern part of the country. That side in the conflict is dominated by Gen. Khalifa Hifter, whose forces are fighting the Misratans and Islamists.

Giuseppe Tumbiolo, the president of the fishing cooperative, said an Italian in the area who was not part of the fishing crew alerted Italian port authorities about the seizure Friday. He said the crew of the seized boat included three Italians and four Tunisians.

Tumbiolo said he was in contact with the authorities in both Italy and Libya about the episode and similar recent cases.

"We are confident we'll find a solution soon. This is an ancient story," he said.

Tumbiolo said Italian fishing boats have been accosted off Libya at least a dozen times since 2005, including a kidnapping in 2012, but that they had little choice but to keep venturing into the area.

"Desperation pushes our fishermen to sail into international waters looking for red prawns, our primary resource," he said. "We had stopped through the latest disorder, but we have to keep on living, too."

The flow of foreigners attempting the risky crossing to Italy, and running into trouble on the way, also continued Friday.

An Italian ship picked up 60 to 70 people at sea, many of whom were suffering from serious burns, according to officials of aid organizations on Lampedusa, the Italian island where the people landed. The aid organizations said the people had been injured in a gas-cylinder explosion several days earlier, before embarking for the boat trip, but that smugglers had refused to let them seek medical care.

Thousands of people fleeing conflicts or poverty head to Italy each year on smugglers' boats setting sail from Libya.

The International Organization of Migration estimates that up to 3,072 people died in the Mediterranean in 2014, compared with an estimate of 700 in 2013. Overall, since the year 2000, the organization estimates, that more than 22,000 have lost their lives trying to reach Europe.

Last year, 170,000 arrived on Italian shores, thanks to rescue operations.

Information for this article was contributed by David D. Kirkpatrick of The New York Times and by The Associated Press.

A Section on 04/18/2015

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