ROME - A ship carrying hundreds of migrants has been abandoned by its crew in rough seas in the Mediterranean off Italy's south coast in the second such incident in three days, the Italian coastguard said on Friday.
Three coastguards managed to take control of the vessel, the Sierra Leone-flagged Ezadeen, after landing on it by helicopter, a statement said. They will take it to an Italian port. The cargo ship had been drifting powerless in rough seas about 40 nautical miles from Italy's southern coast with as many as 450 people onboard. It had run out of fuel.
In an earlier incident, about 900 migrants, mostly Syrian refugees, arrived in Italy on Wednesday after they were apparently abandoned by their ship's crew and set on a crash course for the Italian coast. The coastguard also boarded that vessel and took over navigation.
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