NATO said yesterday that Italian authorities never directly requested assistance from NATO in regard to the disabled migrant boat discovered earlier in the week by a Cypriot tug boat. NATO spokespersons said while NATO was informed that the migrant boat was in distress, Italian authorities also informed NATO that Italian patrol boats and a rescue helicopter were responding to the situation. NATO spokesperson Carmen Romero said NATO had a history of responding to emergency situations and pointed by way of example to NATO’s response on 26 March to two migrant boats in distress. A Canadian naval ship under NATO command in March rendered assistance to two migrant boats but, unlike the incident last month when a Spanish ship under NATO command rescued 100 migrants and was unable to offload the migrants for five days, the Canadian ship did not take the migrants on board.
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Click here and here for previous posts on topic.
Click here for previous post about 11 July incident.
Click here and here for previous posts about the 26 March incident.
MIGRANTS AT SEA 