'They went nuts and they were screaming and shouting 'Go back! Go back! Go back!'' Captain tells AP that migrants who hijacked an oil tanker that rescued them threatened crew members after they realized they were being returned to Libya.
Armed forces stand onboard the Turkish oil tanker El Hiblu 1, which was hijacked by migrants, in Valletta, Malta, Thursday March 28, 2019. A Maltese special operations team boarded a tanker Thursday that had been hijacked by migrants rescued at sea and recaptured control of it before escorting it to a Maltese port.
“They attacked the cockpit, heavily beating on the doors and the windows and they threatened to smash the boat,” Hiblu said in an exclusive account given Friday to The Associated Press. He spoke by phone from the ship, which is now docked in Valletta, the capital of Malta.For years, the Mediterranean Sea has been a place drama and death as desperate people from Africa and the Middle East board unseaworthy smuggling boats with dreams of a better life in Europe.
El-Hiblu said the drama began Tuesday afternoon when his tanker was traveling from Istanbul to Libya. He was contacted by a military aircraft flying above — though he isn’t sure if it was Maltese or Italian — alerting him of a boat with people who needed help.“I took the people in the boat and there were six who refused to jump in, fearing that I take them back to Libya,” he said. “They refused to come with me and they fled while the plane was going after them.
At 6 a.m. Wednesday, el-Hiblu alerted Libyan port authorities that he was nearing the coast and requested assistance from coast guards or naval forces, aware that the migrants would become upset at realizing they were returning to Libya. El-Hiblu called the port in Libya again and told them the crew was heading north toward Europe, saying: “they are going to kill me and kill us if we return. We are leaving.”
As the tanker moved north, news started spreading it was heading either toward Malta or the Italian island of Lampedusa. Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who has a strong anti-migrant stance, said Italy would not accept them.But on Thursday morning, the Maltese armed forces stormed the vessel and detained five men suspected of leading the hijacking, taking them away in handcuffs when the ship docked in Valletta, the capital.
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