A boatload of migrants said they came under “armed attack” in the Mediterranean, Italian authorities said Monday, after an NGO reported a fatal shooting by Libya’s coastguard in the same area.
In a statement, the Italian coastguard said it had launched an investigation after picking up three people who required urgent medical attention, among a group of 140 migrants on a fishing vessel off Sicily.
“According to initial statements from the occupants, the fishing vessel was the target of an armed attack approximately 100 miles (160 kilometers) southeast of Malta, in Maltese search-and-rescue waters,” the coastguard said.
“Investigations into the circumstances of the crossing and what actually happened are currently under way.”
It is unusual for the coastguard to report such allegations.
On Sunday, the Alarm Phone charity, which runs a hotline for migrants stranded in the Mediterranean, reported a fatal shooting at a boat it said was carrying 113 migrants in a similar area, southeast of Malta.
“People report that they are being shot at by the so-called Libyan coastguard,” it said in a message on X.
It later reported that those on board said two people were dead, adding that it could not confirm that information.
The Maltese military declined to confirm or deny the claims, according to the Times of Malta newspaper.
But a spokesperson said it had monitored a fishing vessel and noticed “no visible commotion” on board nor received any distress calls.
The vessel was intercepted on Monday morning near the Italian coast, the spokesperson told the newspaper.
The Italian coastguard said it was picked up about 40 miles (60 kilometers) off the Sicilian coast and those on board were transferred to the port of Pozzallo.
It was the third incident in which the Libyan coastguard has been accused of firing at migrant boats.
One involving SOS Mediterranee’s Ocean Viking ship struck in August and the other, involving a ship run by German charity Sea-Watch, in September.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government and the European Union provide funding and training to the Libyan coastguard to intercept people trying to cross to Europe.
The agreement — signed in 2017 by the then center-left government in Rome — is credited with sharply reducing the number of migrants reaching Italy via sea.
But it has been increasingly criticized amid numerous reports that EU-funded detention centers in Libya are run by human traffickers who collude with the coastguard.
