African migrants became violent and threatened to kill the crew of an Italian supply ship that had rescued them.
According to Breitbart, Vos Thalassa, a specialist Offshore Supply Ship, picked up more than 60 migrants after responding to a distress call in the Mediterranean on Sunday night.
However, after several minutes, the crew were taken “hostage” by the people they rescued.
Apparently, some of the individuals who were rescued became enraged when a Libyan coastguard boat arrived on the scene to take the illegal immigrants back to Lybia.
“It turned from a rescue to piracy,” commented the Italian transport ministry, stating that “death threats were made.”
“The tugboat, which had been hired by Libya for logistics operations supporting some oil platforms off our coasts, intervened to rescue 63 people aboard a wooden boat,” Libyan Coast Guard spokesman Admiral Ayoub Qassem said.
“The migrants grew increasingly aggressive and threatened to kill the crew because they did not want to return to Libya in any way when they saw the boat, forcing it to head north,” he added.
“We did not want to do anything that could further degenerate the situation. Our priority was to ensure the safety of the crew and all the other people,” Qassem said.
The “pirates” were later transported over to an Italian coast guard boat, which intervened after being alerted to a “situation of serious danger for the security of the Vos Thalassa and its crew … caused by attitudes threatening the crew by some migrants”, according to a statement.
Italian Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli said he was “proud” of the country’s Coast Guard for taking the migrants “who were endangering the life of the Italian cruiser Vos Thalassa.”
“Now onwards with investigations to punish troublemakers,” he added.
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