June 10 () –
The Italian Ministry of Defense has announced that the special forces of the Italian Army have been forced to intervene this past Friday to free a merchant ship hijacked by a group of migrants who were discovered as stowaways.
The group, according to Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, was made up of 15 people (13 men and two women) of Syrian, Afghan and Iraqi nationalities, all of them hiding on the ship ‘Galata Seaways’, which covered the route from Turkey to France.
According to the first version that the Italian government is considering, the ship’s crew discovered the migrants early yesterday. In response, some men in the group, “armed with two knives and a box cutter”, managed to hold off part of the crew while others tried to get into the security area leading to the ship’s bridge.
“However, the commander of the ship managed to raise the alarm and request the immediate intervention of the Special Forces of the San Marco battalion,” according to information collected by the Italian newspaper ‘La Repubblica’.
The operation also had the participation of the Coast Guard service and the Financial Police, which usually collaborates with immigration operations.
The armed migrants were immediately reduced while the rest were detained during the subsequent search of the ship on its way to the port of Naples, already under the control of the special forces, Minister Crosetto explained, pending the evolution of the investigations.
