Rome, March 4. The Italian authorities located this morning the body of another child, bringing to 69 the number of dead, including 15 minors, recovered from the shipwreck which occurred last Sunday off Crotone (Calabria, southern Italy).
Firefighters working on the search found the body in an area of the beach near the scene of the tragedy, to which the little boy had been brought back pushed by the waves, according to local media.
So far 56 of the 69 bodies found have been identified, mostly Afghan, Iranian, Pakistani and Syrian, as they search for between 27 and 47 missing, so it is feared the final toll will top 100 while 81 people were rescued. alive.
The Relief Coordination Center is centralizing the search efforts, “which will continue to the end”, the Crotone prefecture said in a statement on Friday.
Air, naval and diving units participate in it, as well as ground personnel from the Coast Guard, the Prefecture of Police, the Carabinieri, the Financial Guard, the Fire Department and the Regional Civil Protection.
It has also been reported that procedures for the repatriation of some of the bodies will begin shortly, with the submission of applications by the families of the victims at the town hall in nearby Cutro.
The sinking, investigated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, occurred last Sunday at dawn when the wooden barge in which some 180 migrants had left Turkey, according to the survivors, sank off the Calabrian coast, in very rough seas .
One aspect of the investigation by the Crotone Public Prosecutor’s Office relates to the operations of the security forces in the hours preceding the sinking and the Carabinieri have been asked to recover documents related to the activity of the Coast Guard and the Financial Guard after The European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex, informed them of the vessel’s presence on Saturday evening.
The different versions of Frontex and the Italian security forces have cast doubt on the possibility of avoiding the tragedy and the new leader of the opposition Democratic Party, Elly Schlein, has called for the resignation of the Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, very close to the extreme right Matteo Salvini, vice-president of the government.
One of the most criticized points is the decision not to consider the event as a rescue operation from the start, which is why initially only a small device was activated with the intention of contacting the ship and several hours passed without the boat being taken care of. , according to the story published by Italian law enforcement.