Fishing boat attacked by Libyans, the helmsman: “100 machine gun shots against us”

The Libyan Coast Guard allegedly fired “at least 100 shots” at the trawler Aliseo who “wanted to kidnap us. Then I don’t know who intervened from Rome and then the solution was found”. Speaking is Girolamo Giacalone, helmsman of the boat, talking to journalists at the port of Mazara del Vallo shortly after docking. “We were sailing to Greece, because the Navy helicopter had invited us to move,” he says. “Then, after about an hour we found the Libyan patrol boat chasing us. The first shots were blanks, but then they started hitting the windows and we stopped the cars also because the commander was injured”. He is also the one to explain that the Libyans have fired “at least 100 shots”. “I used to go up and down to help the commander, they fired everywhere, the bullets pierced the plates, if we had passed through there we would have died. It was a miracle that today we are all alive”. Read also