Nineteen people drowned when a boat loaded with as many as 150 people who were thought to be migrants capsized off the northern coast of Cyprus, a Turkish Cypriot official said Wednesday.
Tolga Atakan, the transport minister in the breakaway north of ethnically divided Cyprus, told The Associated Press that rescue crews were searching for 25 missing passengers in an area where a passing cargo ship reported spotting people in the water.
People with hands painted in red protest in front of the Italian Interior Ministry headquarters in Rome, Wednesday, July 18, 2018. Dozens of protesters marched in front of the ministry to protest government's hard-line immigration policy. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
The Turkish coast guard said it rescued 103 of the capsized vessel's passengers and took them to Turkey. One seriously injured person was being treated at a hospital in the northern part of Cyprus' capital, Nicosia, Atakan said.
Atakan said the nationalities of the passengers have not been confirmed. When asked if they were thought to be migrants, Atakan said "most probably."
Aysegul Baybars, the interior minister in northern Cyprus, told Turkey's CNN-Turk television that authorities were investigating if bad weather, sabotage or other factors caused the sinking.
She said authorities don't know where the vessel has set sail from or where it was heading.
The capsizing occurred around 16 miles (26 kilometers) north of Cyprus' Karpas Peninsula, but it's not yet clear when.
In May, nine Syrian migrants drowned when their boat capsized off Cyprus' northern coast. The United Nations' refugee agency said it was the first shipwreck involving migrants off the island nation.
Constantinos Petrides, the interior minister in the internationally recognized government of Cyprus based in the south, told The Associated Press that new arrivals have grown at an alarming pace.
The 2,500 asylum applications Cyprus received during the first half of the year puts the country alongside Greece as having the most asylum-seekers per capita in the European Union, Petrides said.
People with hands painted in red protest in front of the Italian Interior Ministry headquarters in Rome, Wednesday, July 18, 2018. Dozens of protesters marched in front of the ministry to protest government's hard-line immigration policy. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
He alleged that trafficking rings are bringing immigrants, mainly Syrians, by boat from Turkey to northern Cyprus.
Thousands of Europe-bound migrants have attempted to cross the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa this year, a dangerous journey often made in overcrowded and inadequate vessels procured by human smugglers.
The International Organization for Migration said before the Cyprus wreck that 1,443 people died or went missing this year in the Mediterranean Sea route from northern Africa as of July 15.
Friction between the Italian government and private aid groups that patrol the sea to look for people in danger ratcheted up Wednesday when a Spanish aid organization shunned an Italian port for one in Spain. Proactiva Open Arms said it found a survivor and two dead bodies from a migrant boat wreck on Tuesday, and accused Italy of complicity.
The Open Arms vessel was expected to arrive on Saturday in the port of Palma de Mallorca, said a Spanish government spokeswoman who was not authorized to be named in media reports.
A rescue worker from the Proactiva Open Arms Spanish NGO helps a migrant, rescued off the Libyan coast, on Tuesday July 17, 2018. Proactiva Open Arms said it found one woman alive Tuesday and another dead, along with the body of a toddler, amid the drifting remains of a destroyed migrant boat some 80 nautical miles from the Libyan coast. (Proactiva Open Arms via AP)
The aid organization accused Libya's coast guard, which has received training from Italy and funding from the European Union, of abandoning the three people Monday when it took 158 other migrants from the boat and destroyed it.
But the aid group also aimed sharp criticism at Italian authorities, who initially granted the Open Arms permission to dock in the Sicilian port of Catania, according to Proactiva.
In a statement on Wednesday, the aid group said it did not trust how the Italian government would handle the investigation of Monday wreckage after Interior Minister Matteo Salvini referred to the group's account as "lies and insults."
The strongman in the new Italian populist government, Salvini has vowed to halt the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean, giving aid to Libyan authorities and vowing to close the country's ports to aid groups it accuses of helping human traffickers by picking up migrants and bringing them to Europe.
Proactiva reported that a woman and a young boy were dead by the time private rescuers found them Tuesday morning in waters some 80 miles off the Libyan coast. Rescuers also found a woman clinging to a piece of wood amid the remnants of a 10-meter-long inflatable boat.
Rescue workers from the Proactiva Open Arms Spanish NGO retrieve the bodies of an adult and a child amid the drifting remains of a destroyed migrant boat off the Libyan coast, on Tuesday July 17, 2018. A migrant rescue aid group accused Libya's coast guard of abandoning three people in the Mediterranean Sea, including an adult woman and a toddler who died, after intercepting some 160 Europe-bound migrants on Monday near the shores of the northern African country. (Proactiva Open Arms via AP)
Libya's coast guard denied on Tuesday having left anyone at sea and blamed any deaths at sea on human traffickers and the "presence of such irresponsible, non-governmental groups in the region."
In addition to accusing Libyan coast guards, Proactiva's director Oscar Camps said Italy was to blame for "enlisting assassins" to "kill and torture" those who try to cross the Mediterranean.
"The policies of Matteo Salvini are responsible for this crime," Camps said in a statement.
Salvini responded to the criticism in a tweet that rhetorically asked why the Open Arms vessel was shunning the Italian safe port offer.
"Could it be that they have something to hide?" he asked.
Humanitarian groups say the pressure being exerted on them by hostile governments is increasing the number of deaths at sea, despite a sharp drop in refugee and migrant arrivals in the European Union since 2015.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson assailed the hush money case against Donald Trump Tuesday as an illegitimate “sham,” becoming the highest-ranking Republican to show up at court, embrace the former president's claims of political persecution and attack the U.S. system of justice.
It was a remarkable moment in modern American politics: The House speaker amplifying Trump's defense and turning the Republican Party against the federal and state legal systems that are foundational to the U.S. government and a cornerstone of democracy.
Johnson, who is second in line for the presidency, called the court system “corrupt.”
Outside the New York courthouse, he decried “this ridiculous prosecution that is not about justice.” He said, "It’s all about politics."
The speaker is leading a growing list of Republican lawmakers who are criticizing the American judicial system as they rally to Trump’s side, appearing at the courthouse to defend the party’s presumptive presidential nominee. Trump is accused of having arranged secret payments to a porn actress to hide negative stories during his successful 2016 campaign for president.
With Trump stuck in court and barred by a judge’s gag order from criticizing witnesses or certain elements of the case, Johnson and the lawmakers are taking it upon themselves to attack the proceedings, now in a fourth week of witness testimony. They're using the trial as a de facto campaign stop as they work to return the former president to the White House.
In portraying the case against Trump as politically motivated, the Republicans are also laying the groundwork to dismiss its significance should the jury convict, and for potential challenges to the fall election, a rematch with President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
Johnson was a chief architect of Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 presidential results ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, mob assault on the U.S. Capitol, and last week he called the hush money trial and the other election-year cases against Trump a “borderline criminal conspiracy.”
“It is election interference,” Johnson said Tuesday, insisting he was appearing on his own to back Trump, whom he called a friend. “And the American people are not going to let this stand.”
Unlike other Republicans showing up to show their support, Johnson did not enter the courtroom where Trump is on trial, but dashed back to Washington to open the House chamber for the day.
Later at the Capitol, Johnson repeated the Republican Party's claims of the justice system being “weaponized” against Trump and said Americans are “losing faith” in it.
Also with Trump on Tuesday were U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum — both considered possible vice presidential candidates — as well as former GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, one of Trump’s current top surrogates.
U.S. Sens. JD Vance of Ohio and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama were among those who attended court on Monday.
Trump’s campaign has lined up allies in recent days to appear at the New York courthouse to attack witnesses and others whom Trump is barred by a judge’s gag order from criticizing himself.
Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said Monday that he appeared last week at the invitation of Trump senior advisor Susie Wiles. The campaign has said others volunteered to come to New York.
“The Democrats are using the court system to go after and prosecute, criminally, a political opponent — that's a crime,” Scott said over the weekend on Fox News. “They’re just thugs trying to stop Trump from being able to run for president.”
In the short term, the Republicans' presence at the courthouse and comments critical of the process have let Trump and his allies amplify their message without risking another explicit violation of the gag order. Trump's attorneys have challenged the gag order as unconstitutional, but an appeals court upheld it on Tuesday.
Johnson specifically attacked the credibility of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer who began his second day of testimony in the former president’s hush money trial. And others, too.
He criticized Cohen as “a man who is clearly on a mission for personal revenge," said lead prosecutor Matthew Colangelo “recently received over $10,000 in payments from the Democratic National Committee” and said the daughter of Judge Juan M. Merchan has made “millions of dollars" doing online fundraising for Democrats.
Colangelo, who joined the Manhattan District Attorney's Office in 2022 and previously worked in the U.S. Justice Department in the Biden administration, did paid “political consulting” work for the DNC in 2018, according to federal campaign finance records.
The Republican speaker, who is wholly dependent on support from Trump to keep the gavel, has aimed to strengthen their alliance, particularly as Johnson has come under fire from his own caucus in the House, including a failed effort at his removal by a fellow Trump backer, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
Johnson made an appearance with the former president at his Mar-a-Lago club last month to announce new House legislation to require proof of citizenship for voting, echoing Trump's baseless claims that Democrats are abetting immigrants entering the U.S. illegally to swing elections — another potential route for Republican challenges to the 2024 election.
There isn’t any indication that noncitizens vote in significant numbers in federal elections or that they will in the future.
And Johnson joined Trump on stage for the Republican National Committee's gala at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, praising the presumptive presidential nominee and saying House Republicans fully expect to ride Trump's coattails to their own re-elections to keep the majority hold on the chamber.
Johnson has been using the pulpit of the speaker’s office in Washington to attack the U.S. judicial system, criticizing the courts as biased against the former president, claiming the case is politically motivated by Democrats and insisting Trump has done nothing wrong.
The speaker has demurred when asked if the 2020 election was legitimate, and in a departure from the tradition of trust and adherence in U.S. election systems, Johnson and other Republicans have hedged when asked if they will accept the election results of 2024.
Kinnard reported from Columbia, South Carolina. Lisa Mascaro in Washington and Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.
Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP
U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, center, and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy listen as former President Donald Trump, left, talks with reporters as he arrives at Manhattan criminal court in New York, on Tuesday, May 14, 2024. (Justin Lane/Pool Photo via AP)
U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) listens as former President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he arrives for his trial at Manhattan criminal court before his trial in New York, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. (Michael M. Santiago/Pool Photo via AP)
Former President Donald Trump sits in Manhattan Criminal Court in New York on Monday, May 13, 2024. (Mark Peterson/New York Magazine via AP, Pool)
U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson speaks at a news conference across the street from the Manhattan criminal court, Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in New York.(AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson speaks at a press conference across the street from the Manhattan criminal court, Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in New York.(AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson speaks at a press conference across the street from the Manhattan criminal court, Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in New York.(AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson arrives at a press conference across the street from the Manhattan criminal court, Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in New York.(AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
