Italy rejects any blame for deadly migrant shipwreck

By FRANCES D’EMILIO
Associated Press

ROME (AP) — Italy’s interior minister has strongly rejected claims that government policies to discourage illegal migration played a role in a Feb. 26 shipwreck off the nation’s southern coast in which at least 72 people died. Minister Matteo Piantedosi said asserting that “rescues were supposedly conditioned or even impeded by the government constitutes a grave falsehood.” Opposition lawmakers and humanitarian groups have decried Italy’s decision to send only border police boats and not coast guard rescue boats to the aid of a vessel first spotted about 40 nautical miles off Italy’s coast. The splintered remains of a wooden boat and dozens of bodies washed ashore hours later. The body of a 3-year-old child was recovered Tuesday.