NGO Alarm Phone accuses the Italian government of "voluntarily" delaying the rescue of 47 migrants to "let them die". 30 people have died and are still missing, 17 are rescued. A merchant vessel was carrying out rescue operations when the migrants' boat has flown, according to Italian coastguards.

The migrant boat left the coast of Libya and was bankrupt. Alarm This explained that the risk was communicated to the Italian, Libyan and Maltese authorities on Saturday at 2:30 a.m. "The weather conditions were very dangerous and an immediate rescue was needed". The NGO believes that the Italian authorities wanted to prevent migrants from coming to Italy and that is why they delayed the intervention for the Libyan coast guards to return migrants to Libya.

Initially, the Libyan authorities informed the NGO that they would ship a rescue boat. They were then told that they were unwilling and that the search and rescue was for Italy.

NGO Sea Watch denounces the attitude of the Libyan authorities. Apparently, a commercial ship was near the migrant ship, but they promised to wait for the Libyan coast guards, who were not equipped for rescue. In the end, coastguards didn't show up. Sea Watch members called the Italian rescue coordination centre to ask who would be in charge of coordination. They say they hung their phone.