World
Survivors and families of 94 migrants who died in shipwreck off Italy call for truth a year later
CROTONE, Italy (AP) — Survivors and family members of victims of a tragic shipwreck a year ago that killed 94 migrants, including 35 minors, just a few meters off Italy’s southern coast, returned for three days of commemorations ending Monday, calling for truth and justice.
A torchlight vigil, a photo exhibition and a protest march were among events at the nearby town of Crotone organized by a group of activists named Network Feb. 26 after the date of the tragedy. Most of the dead hailed from countries in the Middle East or South Asia.
“One year after the carnage, their right to the truth, to justice and to be reunited with their families has not been guaranteed yet,” the group wrote on its Facebook page.
On Feb. 26 last year, a wooden boat departed from Turkey carrying about 200 migrants and sank just a few meters (yards) off the coast of southern Calabria while trying to land on the seaside resort beach of Steccato di Cutro.
Network Feb. 26 includes over 400 associations that have repeatedly asked the Italian government to seek the truth about one of the deadliest migrant shipwrecks in the Mediterranean.
The group has denounced repeated policy failures and alleged violations of human rights by Italian and EU authorities, seen as the main cause behind the long string of deaths of migrants who face risky trips to reach European coasts in their search for a better life.
Activists have also complained that some of the relatives and survivors were denied the right to return to Crotone for the anniversary of the shipwreck, due to difficulties in obtaining proper documents.
“When we met (Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni ) in Rome after the tragedy, (she) promised that her staff would (work) to reunite us and our families, but that has never happened,” said Haroon Mohammadi, 24, a survivor from Herat, Afghanistan, who lost some of his friends in the shipwreck.
Mohammadi now lives in Hamburg, Germany, where he has obtained a one-year residence permit, and hopes to continue to study economics at a university there.
“It’s very difficult for me to be back here, but I came to honor friends and relatives we’ve lost. … We became like a family following that day,” he told The Associated Press.
Many of the dead and survivors had fled Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Syria, hoping to join family members in Italy and other Western European countries.
After the shipwreck, the right-wing government of Meloni approved a decree establishing a new crime — people smuggling that causes the death of migrants — punishable by up to 30 years in prison, and pledged to further toughen its battle against illegal immigration.
On Sunday, hundreds of people, including a group of about 50 survivors and relatives of the victims, marched in Crotone despite heavy rain with a banner asking to “stop deaths at sea.” Demonstrators also stopped to pay homage in front of PalaMilone, a sports complex that hosted the victims’ caskets.
On Saturday, Crotone’s Pitagora Museum inaugurated a photo exhibit titled “Dreams Cross the Sea,” featuring 94 photographs, one for each of the victims.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
In the early hours of Feb. 26, the boat named Summer Love sank just a few meters (yards) from the coast of the southern Calabria region, while trying to land on the nearby beach. Authorities say the shipwreck resulted in the deaths of at least 94 of the 200 on board. Eighty passengers survived and about 10 were considered missing. Dozens of young children were onboard and almost none survived.
The shocking accident raised several questions over how EU border agency Frontex and the Italian coastguard responded to it.
Six days after the tragedy, Meloni told journalists that “no emergency communication from Frontex reached Italian authorities,” who she said were not warned that the vessel was in danger of sinking.
However, a Frontex incident report later indicated that Italian authorities told the EU agency at the time of the sighting that the case was not considered an emergency.
The Cutro shipwreck soon became a stark illustration of the fatal dangers faced by migrants as they try to reach European coasts on overcrowded and fragile boats, after paying smugglers for costly trips.
A total of 2,571 migrants died at sea in 2023, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration. Nearly 100 people have been reported missing or dead in the Mediterranean since the beginning of 2024, more than double the toll recorded last year during the same period, the IOM said.
RAGE AND HOPE
Over the past year, Cutro survivors and relatives of the victims have voiced their rage, stressing that the tragedy could have been avoided if authorities reacted earlier to the migrants’ desperate calls for help.
Their testimonies on the tragedy have challenged both the Italian government and the international community to find new solutions to the migration crisis.
Meanwhile, the local community, which offered burial niches for some of the victims, expressed a deep solidarity and commitment to helping survivors and honoring the lost.
“My name is Mojtaba. I was born on Feb. 26, 2023. I feel I’m 1 year old today,” said survivor Mojtaba Rezapour Moghaddam, a 47-year-old Iranian who is building a new life in Crotone with the help of locals and aid groups.
Moghaddam fears the smugglers on board the Summer Love — after being arrested and sentenced — will be able go to back to Turkey and restart their illegal trafficking activities.
His almost-deadly trip to Italy costed him about 9,000 euros, but he recalled that others on the boat had paid even more.
TRIALS PENDING
Earlier in February, a Crotone magistrate sentenced Gun Ufuk, a 29-year-old Turkish citizen accused of being one of the people smugglers on the vessel, to 20 years in prison and a 3 million euro fine. Ufuk was arrested in March last year after being identified in Austria, to where he had managed to escape.
Ufuk chose a fast-track trial, while the other three alleged smugglers who survived the shipwreck are undergoing ordinary procedures, which may last several months, if not years.
Their trial was recently adjourned to April 10 to enable testimony from three survivors who are in Hamburg and will testify via videoconference.
Meanwhile, a second investigation launched by prosecutors in Crotone into alleged delays in the rescue operations is expected to wrap up in a month’s time. That probe involves three police officers from the Italian tax and border police and an additional three people whose identities are unknown.
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Zampano reported from Rome.
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Follow AP’s global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration
World
Shakira Acquitted of Tax Fraud in Spain, Will Be Reimbursed $64 Million: Singer Says She’s Spent Eight Years ‘Enduring Campaigns to Destroy My Reputation’
After an eight-year court battle, a Spanish court has ordered the country’s treasury to refund nearly $65 million to singer Shakira after ruling that the money was improperly collected.
The country’s high court has acquitted the Colombian singer of tax fraud and ordered the treasury to repay the money to her, with interest. In the ruling, the court said that tax authorities failed to prove Shakira had spent 183 days in Spain in 2011, effectively making her a resident and liable for personal income tax. The court ruled instead that she had spent just 163 days in the country during that financial year.
The country’s tax agency said it would appeal to the Spanish Supreme Court, and would make no payment until the final ruling.
In a lengthy statement following the ruling, Shakira said: “After more than eight years of enduring brutal public targeting, orchestrated campaigns to destroy my reputation, and sleepless nights that ultimately impacted my health and my family’s well-being, the National High Court has finally set the record straight. There was never any fraud, and the Administration itself could never prove otherwise, simply because it wasn’t true.
“Yet, for nearly a decade, I was treated as guilty. Every step of the process was leaked, distorted, and amplified, using my name and public image to send a threatening message to the rest of the taxpayers.
“Today, that narrative crumbles, and it does so with the full force of a court ruling. My greatest wish is that this ruling sets a precedent for the Treasury and serves the thousands of ordinary citizens who are abused and crushed every day by a system that presumes their guilt and forces them to prove their innocence at the cost of economic and emotional ruin. This victory is dedicated to them.”
The news comes just days after Shakira was announced as a halftime performer, along with Madonna and BTS, during the half-time show at this summer’s Fifa Men’s World Cup final. Earlier in May, she performed for an estimated 2 million people at a free concert on the Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro.
World
Bodies of four missing Italian divers found inside ‘shark cave’ in Maldives days after they vanished
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Rescuers located the bodies of four Italian divers deep inside an underwater cave in the Maldives, days after the group vanished during a dangerous dive far beyond recreational limits, Italy’s Foreign Ministry said Monday.
Officials said Finnish cave-diving specialists found the bodies in the innermost section of the cave system in Vaavu Atoll, where the divers disappeared Thursday while exploring at a depth of about 160 feet. The recreational diving limit in the Maldives is 98 feet.
“As was previously thought, the four bodies were found inside the cave, not only inside the cave but well inside the cave into the third segment of the cave, which is the largest part,” Maldives government spokesman Ahmed Shaam said, adding the victims were found “pretty much together.”
The Thinwana Kandu cave system where the bodies were found is known locally as “shark cave.”
RESCUE OPERATION FREES INJURED MAN TRAPPED 130 FEET UNDERGROUND IN ITALIAN CAVE
Monica Montefalcone, one of five Italian scuba divers who died near Alimathaa in the Maldives archipelago while exploring an underwater cave, is shown in this undated photo released by Greenpeace Italia on May 15, 2026. (Greenpeace Italia/AP)
Recovery crews plan to retrieve two bodies Tuesday and the remaining two the following day, officials said.
The discovery came after authorities resumed the search following the death of a Maldivian military diver involved in the rescue mission. Mohamed Mahdi died Saturday from decompression sickness after attempting to reach the trapped divers.
Mohamed Mahdi, a member of the Maldivian National Defense Force, died from decompression sickness during the dangerous mission, officials said. (Maldives National Defense Force)
A fifth Italian diver, identified earlier as a diving instructor, was previously found dead outside the cave.
BAGPIPER DIES DOING POPULAR VACATION ATTRACTION DAYS BEFORE MISSING SON’S REMAINS FOUND IN BACKYARD TREEHOUSE
The specialized Finnish team used advanced closed-circuit rebreather systems, allowing for longer and deeper dives in the cave’s confined environment.
Divers prepare to search for four missing Italian divers near Alimathaa Island, Vaavu Atoll, Maldives, on May 15, 2026. (Maldives President’s Media Division/AP)
Rough seas and hazardous underwater conditions repeatedly delayed search efforts as crews mapped and marked the cave entrance before pushing deeper inside.
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Authorities continue to investigate the situation and what led to the divers’ deaths.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Published on •Updated
The bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has criticised the overwhelmingly male nature of peace negotiation teams, linking it to contemporary diplomacy’s tendency toward short-term results.
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“This is a bigger problem we see around the world with different peace talks when we see that they don’t actually address the issues of long-standing peace,” she said at a press conference in Tallinn, Estonia on Sunday.
The ceasefires many talks yield, she said, too often simply declare hostilities over without resolving the “underlying issues” that perpetuate future violence.
Another problem, she said, is the lack of female input.
“There are also studies that show that when women are part of the negotiations, these peace (efforts) last longer,” Kallas expanded, adding that “the picture that we saw from the US China talks, (was) a lot of masculinity in the room”.
“Women have a role,” she said.
Various studies and international bodies, including the UN Security Council, argue that women’s participation in conflict resolution improves outcomes, but mediators and negotiating parties often leave women out of their teams.
According to data compiled by the Council on Foreign Relations, women represented only 16 percent of negotiators in active peace processes led or co-led by the United Nations in 2022.
Security and defence analyst Iana Maisuradze of the European Policy Centre think tank argues that the EU is a firm supporter of the UN resolution calling for more female participation during conflict resolution – and that it is not “sexist argument” to believe that women are beneficial to negotiations. She told Euronews the data backs this up.
“The argument is that women focus on things that male-dominated negotiators are not focusing on such as education, health, victims’ rights, social reconciliation (and) community: things that really bring people together rather than a zero-sum game, which men tend to do,” Maisuradze said.
“Having women at table works because we also bring different perspectives to the resolution of the conflict, and also to the implementation of peace agreements.”
A seat at the table
Kallas’ comments came amid wider chatter in the Belgian capital regarding whether the EU should have a seat at the table for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine – and who should represent the bloc if so.
Putin recently floated appointing former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder as the EU’s lead negotiator in potential peace talks on Ukraine. This notion was widely dismissed by European heads of state, and the discussion of who Europe’s mouthpiece should be continues.
Diplomatic sources in Ukraine have said that Russia would “never” accept a woman as lead negotiator.
A diplomatic source in Brussels reiterated this, saying there is no possibility a female figure is being considered as part of the discussions. But another source in the Belgian capital told Euronews that “equality is an important factor”.
Regardless of their differences on the gender issue, most EU officials argue that appointing any envoy before a major European Council (EUCO) summit in June could be unrealistic.
European Commission spokesperson for foreign affairs Anitta Hipper said in response to a question by Euronews on Monday that Kallas is a “feminist” and “has a lot of practice back home”. She was the first female prime minister of Estonia from 2021 to 2024.
Hipper said the Commission could not comment on whether Russia would want a woman at the table, but reiterated that European heads of state will meet in Limassol in Cyprus in the coming weeks to discuss what form any future talks with Ukraine, Russia and Europe might take before June’s EUCO.
“What will be discussed is what our position is in terms of the demands and the ask and what unity we have in demanding our lists of asks from Russia,” Hipper said.
“This is something that we will be looking into – into the what, and not into the who.”
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