At least 20 people missing after migrant shipwreck off Lampedusa

At least 20 people were missing on Wednesday after their boat capsized off the coast of Lampedusa, a small island some 205 kilometres south of Sicily, coast guard authorities and a UN official said, according to AFP.

UN official Chiara Cardoletti said that 20 people were missing, whereas Italy’s coast guard, which rescued seven people on Wednesday morning, put the number at 21.

The vessel, located 20 kilometres off Lampedusa, “was drifting half-submerged in the water and on the point of sinking, with seven migrants on board, all of them men of Syrian nationality,” coast guard authorities said.

“The rescued migrants said that they had left Libya on September 1st with 28 people on board, three of them minors,” they added.]

READ MORE: At least 20 people missing after migrant shipwreck off Italy’s Lampedusa

Searches for the missing people were underway on Wednesday, with an aircraft helping with the operations.

Two Italian climbers die in Marmolada ascent 

Two Italian climbers died while attempting to summit the Marmolada, the highest peak in Italy’s northeastern Dolomites, Italian media reported on Wednesday. 

The victims’ bodies were reportedly recovered on Wednesday morning, with retrieval operations being aided by a helicopter from the Medical Emergency Service (SUEM).

The incident occurred while the climbers were on the Via Don Chisciotte route, on the southern rock wall of the Marmolada peak, which reaches an altitude of 3,343 metres. No further details about the incident were immediately available as of Thursday morning.

The pair, aged 36 and 44, were both residents in Veneto’s Treviso province. 

Italy’s seas and coasts see 30-percent rise in environmental crimes

Italy’s seas and coastal areas saw some 22,956 environmental crimes in 2023 – up by nearly 30 percent compared to the previous year, a report from environmental organisation Legambiente said on Wednesday, according to Ansa.

Some 8.4 offences were reported for every kilometre of Italian coastline – approximately one every 119 metres.

Crimes included the discharge of sewage and polluting materials, illegal fishing and illegal construction work, which accounted for 45 percent of the total offences.

The Legambiente report was released on the eve of the 14th anniversary of the murder of Angelo Vassallo, the former mayor of Pollica, Salerno. 

Vassallo, who was famous for his environmental campaigns and opposed construction plans on Salerno’s already heavily built-up coastline, was shot to death in his car in September 2010, with the murder bearing the hallmarks of a mafia-style execution.

Italian football hooligan leader kills alleged mafia heir

The leader of a group of hardcore fans of the Inter Milan football club on Wednesday stabbed an alleged member of an Italian crime family to death in what he claimed was self-defence.

Andrea Beretta, 49, head of the curva nord (‘north end’) football hooligans, said he stabbed fellow Inter Milan fan Antonio Bellocco, aged 36, after Bellocco shot him in the leg with a firearm, his lawyer, Mirko Perlino, said.

The two men had an altercation while they were in a car outside a sports centre in the Milan suburb of Cernusco sul Naviglio on Wednesday morning.

Perlino told AFP that his client, acting in self-defence, stabbed the victim in the throat.

According to press reports, Bellocco is the heir of a powerful ‘Ndrangheta crime family from Calabria, and has been convicted of organised crime activities in the past.