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Saving lives in the southern Mediterranean

Ten years of cooperation: the Order’s Italian Emergency Corps and the Italian Coast Guard

Lampedusa, 26 September 2017

Fra’ Giacomo Dalla Torre, Lieutenant of the Grand Master, inspects the Order’s Italian Emergency Corps
                                                                          on Lampedusa
Fra’ Giacomo Dalla Torre, Lieutenant of the Grand Master of the Sovereign Order of Malta, today visited the island of Lampedusa, marking ten years of cooperation between the Corps of the Port Captaincies–Coast Guard and the Order of Malta’s Italian Relief Corps. He met many of the Order’s volunteers and heard how they helped those they could help, but how some rescues ended in tragedy. He later embarked on a patrol boat to see for himself how search and rescues at sea are carried out.

The Delegation included the Grand Commander Fra’ Ludwig Hoffmann von Rumerstein, Grand Hospitaller Dominique de La Rochefoucauld-Montbel, and the Emergency Corps’ president, Gerardo Solaro del Borgo, and national manager Mauro Casinghini.

The impact of recent agreements between Italy and the Libyan authorities

On meeting with the mayor of Lampedusa, Salvatore Martello, discussions focussed on focussed on the island’s situation following the recent agreements between Italy and the Libyan authorities with the expansion of Libyan coast-guard capabilities. As a result, it was noted that the number of arrivals has fallen. Fra’ Giacomo also visited the port of Catania, where he inspected the Coastguard vessel L. Dattilo which serves in the southern Mediterranean. Here he congratulated the Order of Malta’s doctor and nurse operating on board, and met the Order of Malta’s Italian Relief Corps operating on board the Coastguard helicopters for search and rescue at sea.