Experienced reporting on the immigration beat finds smugglers using sailboats crammed with migrants below deck, a highly profitable and previously little-known transit to Europe.
Rome producer Trisha Thomas, who has covered migration in Italy for more than two decades, spotted reports about an unusual increase of arrivals in Calabria, a southern region that had not previously been a main destination point for smugglers bringing people into Europe by boat from Africa or Turkey.
Thomas called the mayor and the head of the local Red Cross, who spoke of being overwhelmed by the influx. Then came a curious detail in Italian Coast Guard handout video: Instead of flimsy rubber rafts or wooden boats, Thomas spotted clips of sleek sailboats. Aid workers call these “1st class” crossings but there is nothing elite about them; 100 people may be packed below deck with meager food and water.
When Thomas called around, she found multiple examples of sailboats smuggling migrants all the way from Turkey, leading to a four-fold surge in sea arrivals at Calabria. She traveled to the southern region with photographer Alessandra Tarantino to learn more. There, they delivered all-formats spot coverage of two arrivals, then kept reporting on this new method of crossing the Mediterranean. Among the discoveries was the economics: A single trip on a stolen sailboat netted smugglers nearly a million dollars.
Speaking to new arrivals in local shelters, Thomas obtained user-generated video of migrants arriving on a Calabrian beach aboard a sailboat. She combined that footage with interviews of migrants, coast guard video and Tarantino’s drone shots of stranded sailboats to build a powerful video story used by more than 160 channels.
A group of refugees and migrants wait to leave a temporary shelter in a gym at Monasterace in the Calabria region of southern Italy, Nov. 11, 2021. Packed below the deck of an expensive sailboat, more than 100 people arrived on a beach in Calabria the previous day, dehydrated, hungry and wet, but alive and relieved to be in Europe.
AP Photo / Alessandra Tarantino
Tooba, left, and Zakia, far right, sister and wife of Hamid, wait to leave a temporary shelter in a gym at Monasterace in the Calabria region of southern Italy, Nov. 11, 2021. When the Taliban took Kabul in August, Hamid was working as an auditor and Zakia was in her first year of university studying economics. They decided to flee with five other family members beginning a two-month odyssey through Iran and Turkey and across the sea, packed below deck on an expensive sailboat that left them on a beach in Calabria on Nov. 10, dehydrated, hungry and wet, but relieved to be in Europe.
AP Photo / Alessandra Tarantino
Sailboats used by smugglers to transport migrants and refugees are beached on Le Cannelle beach at Isola Capo Rizzuto in the Calabria region of southern Italy, Nov. 13, 2021. A single trip on a stolen sailboat can net smugglers nearly a million dollars.
AP Photo / Alessandra Tarantino
Antonio Bosco, president of the local Red Cross committee, looks at a beached sailboat used by smugglers to transport about 100 migrants and refugees from Turkey to Calabria, on the seashore at Monasterace in the Calabria region of southern Italy, Nov. 12, 2021.
AP Photo / Alessandra Tarantino
Migrants disembark at Roccella Jonica in the Calabria region of southern Italy, in the early morning, Nov. 14, 2021. Roccella Jonica received 550 migrants for the day, the highest number they had seen yet. The migrants, including Egyptian minors, were rescued from two fishing boats off the coast that had departed from Tobruk, a town in Libya near the Egyptian border.
AP Photo / Alessandra Tarantino
Migrants, including Egyptian minors, disembark at Roccella Jonica in the Calabria region of southern Italy, in the early morning of Nov. 14, 2021.
AP Photo / Alessandra Tarantino
Migrants, some Egyptian minors, disembark at Roccella Jonica in the Calabria region of southern Italy, in the early morning, Nov. 14, 2021.
AP Photo / Alessandra Tarantino
Migrants and refugees sit on a pier after disembarking at the port of Roccella Jonica in the Calabria region of southern Italy, Nov. 14, 2021. The Italian Coast Guard rescued more than 250 young men and boys, most from Egypt, off the Italian coast.
AP Photo / Alessandra Tarantino
Sailboats used by smugglers to transport migrants and refugees are piled up in the port of Roccella Jonica in the Calabria region of southern Italy, Nov. 12, 2021.
AP Photo / Alessandra Tarantino
The text and photos also drew widespread play, including on major European news portal Euronews. A UK reporter told Thomas he was asked by his editors to match the AP story, but decided against sending a photographer because they couldn’t improve upon Tarantino’s images.
Dozens of reporters across Europe cover migration exclusively, but it took Thomas’ years of experience and Tarantino’s matchless visuals to score the beat in all formats.
For alert, resourceful coverage that reveals a new aspect of European migration and the startling economics behind it, Thomas and Tarantino receive AP’s Best of the Week — Second Winner award.
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