Overview
- Four Guardia di Finanza officers and two coastguard officials appeared in a Crotone court charged with involuntary manslaughter and culpable shipwreck.
- Investigators allege police failed to pass on crucial information and the coastguard did not seek details that would have signaled urgency after a Frontex plane spotted the vessel offshore.
- Authorities say a GDF boat turned back due to bad weather before the wooden Summer Love broke apart near Steccato di Cutro, where at least 94 people died, including 35 children.
- The boat had sailed from Turkey carrying people from Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Syria, about 80 survived and additional victims are believed missing.
- More than 50 survivors and relatives and NGOs such as SOS Humanity and Mediterranea Saving Humans joined as civil parties, with Amnesty International observing as rights groups question deterrence-focused policies and the IOM reports 1,340 deaths on the route last year with new wrecks reported this week.