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Italian fishermen return home after being held in Libya for three months

Eighteen Italian fishermen have been released after being held prisoner in Libya for more than three months, ending a tense political standoff.

Published: 17 December 2020 15:05 CET
Italian fishermen return home after being held in Libya for three months
Fishing boats in the port at Mazara del Vallo, Sicily. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP
The fishermen are returning home to their families following the ordeal, Italy's prime minister and foreign minister said on Thursday after visiting Benghazi to secure their release.
 
“Our fishermen are free,” Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio posted on Facebook, alongside a picture of the men, who were held for 108 days by militiawho accused them of fishing in Libyan territorial waters.
 
“In a few hours they will be able to hug their families and loved ones.”
 
Conte tweeted a picture of the men with the comment “Have a good trip home”.
 

 
In the Italians' hometown of Mazara del Vallo in Sicily, there were cheers, hugs and tears of joy among relatives and friends who gathered in the local council chamber to hear the news.
 
“The fishermen have already spoken with their families and are on board their two fishing boats, Antartide and Medinea,” which had also been seized,
local mayor Salvatore Quinci said.
 
He reported one of the fishermen telling his wife: “I have to leave you now and end the phone call, because I have to start the boat's engine.”
 
Relatives of the fishermen waiting for news in Mazara del Vallo, Sicily, on Thursday. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP
 
 
The plight of the fishermen has gripped Italy since they were seized on September 1st by the forces of strongman Khalifa Haftar, who controls Benghazi, amid a long-running dispute over fishing grounds between Sicily and Libya.
 
Di Maio said he and Conte had met with Haftar, who is waging war against the UN-recognised government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj in the west.
 
“The government continues to firmly support the stabilisation process in Libya,” he said.
 
The fishermen of Mazara del Vallo have for generations relied on Mediterranean waters north of Libya for their livelihoods but see their futures increasingly threatened.
 
Mazara del Vallo, part of the province of Trapani in Sicily, is less than 200 km from the Tunisian coast of North Africa.
 
A fisherman displays the prized red prawns in Mazara del Vallo, Sicily, on Thursday. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP
 
The area is a prime fishing ground for the gambero rosso, or red prawn, a crustacean prized by gourmet chefs which can sell for up to 70 euros a kilo.
 
As fish stocks have dwindled and trawler capabilities improved, their boats have sailed further from port and into waters over which Libya has claimed
sovereignty.
 
Seizues of Italian fishing boats became more frequent in 2005 when Libya's then leader Moamer Kadhafi proclaimed that he was extending its fishing zone from 12 to 74 nautical miles from the coast, in defiance of international standards.
 
 
 

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EUROPEAN UNION

Italian PM Meloni to stand in EU Parliament elections

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Sunday she would stand in upcoming European Parliament elections, a move apparently calculated to boost her far-right party, although she would be forced to resign immediately.

Published: 28 April 2024 15:54 CEST
Italian PM Meloni to stand in EU Parliament elections

Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, which has neo-Fascist roots, came top in Italy’s 2022 general election with 26 percent of the vote.

It is polling at similar levels ahead of the European elections on from June 6-9.

With Meloni heading the list of candidates, Brothers of Italy could exploit its national popularity at the EU level, even though EU rules require that any winner already holding a ministerial position must immediately resign from the EU assembly.

“We want to do in Europe exactly what we did in Italy on September 25, 2022 — creating a majority that brings together the forces of the right to finally send the left into opposition, even in Europe!” Meloni told a party event in the Adriatic city of Pescara.

In a fiery, sweeping speech touching briefly on issues from surrogacy and Ramadan to artificial meat, Meloni extolled her coalition government’s one-and-a-half years in power and what she said were its efforts to combat illegal immigration, protect families and defend Christian values.

After speaking for over an hour in the combative tone reminiscent of her election campaigns, Meloni said she had decided to run for a seat in the European Parliament.

READ ALSO: How much control does Giorgia Meloni’s government have over Italian media?

“I’m doing it because I want to ask Italians if they are satisfied with the work we are doing in Italy and that we’re doing in Europe,” she said, suggesting that only she could unite Europe’s conservatives.

“I’m doing it because in addition to being president of Brothers of Italy I’m also the leader of the European conservatives who want to have a decisive role in changing the course of European politics,” she added.

In her rise to power, Meloni, as head of Brothers of Italy, often railed against the European Union, “LGBT lobbies” and what she has called the politically correct rhetoric of the left, appealing to many voters with her straight talk.

“I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian” she famously declared at a 2019 rally.

She used a similar tone Sunday, instructing voters to simply write “Giorgia” on their ballots.

“I have always been, I am, and will always be proud of being an ordinary person,” she shouted.

EU rules require that “newly elected MEP credentials undergo verification to ascertain that they do not hold an office that is incompatible with being a Member of the European Parliament,” including being a government minister.

READ ALSO: Why is Italy’s government being accused of helping tax dodgers?

The strategy has been used before, most recently in Italy in 2019 by Meloni’s deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, who leads the far-right Lega party.

The EU Parliament elections do not provide for alliances within Italy’s parties, meaning that Brothers of Italy will be in direct competition with its coalition partners Lega and Forza Italia, founded by Silvio Berlusconi.

The Lega and Forza Italia are polling at about seven percent and eight percent, respectively.

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