Sicily’s prisoner fishermen

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2020

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Eighteen fishermen from Sicily are in jail in Benghazi, accused of fishing in Libya’s waters. And in this part of the Mediterranean, rich in the highly-prized and lucrative red prawn, these kinds of arrests are frequent. Usually the Libyans release the men after negotiations. This time it’s different. General Khalifa Haftar – the warlord with authority over the east of Libya – is demanding a prisoner swap: the freeing of four Libyans in jail in Sicily convicted of human trafficking and implicated in the deaths of 49 migrants, in return for the fishermen. For Assignment, Linda Pressly explores a little-known conflict in the Mediterranean - the so-called, ‘Red Prawn War’ and its fall-out.

(Image: Domenico Asaro, a third generation fishermen from Mazara del Vallo who has been arrested at sea by Libya three times. Credit: BBC)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks very much for choosing to download this assignment podcast from the BBC World Service.
0:05.0	So what was the pandemic and the American elections drawing so much focus?
0:09.0	This is a story that hasn't really had a lot of international attention, but in Italy it's been massive,
0:15.0	and on the island of Sicily, everyone's talking about the prisoner fishermen.
0:20.0	Listen up.
0:29.0	As a wife, as a wife,
0:29.0	as a wife,
0:29.0	as a wife and before that as the girlfriend of a fisherman my
0:37.1	ritual's always been to go to the port with my husband on the day he leaves my heart leaves too on that fishing boat, he will look only at the sea and the sky.
0:48.0	A fishing boat knows when it departs, but it never knows if it will return.
0:55.0	This time Marika Kalandrino's husband Giacomo and 17 others didn't come home.
1:02.0	Fisherman from Masada del Valo on Sicily's west coast,
1:05.3	they were detained by Libyan coast guards on the night of the 1st of September.
1:09.7	I'm Linda Presley and in this week's assignment on the BBC World Service the Red Prawn War
1:15.2	fishing for this lucrative crustacean in the contested waters of the Mediterranean.
1:27.0	News of Giacomo's arrest reach Madica swiftly. That day was beyond words.
1:32.0	That day was beyond words. I remember it perfectly. I was very distressed. We have a 14-month-old
1:39.1	daughter and she sensed my unease. I only found strength by looking into her eyes.
1:44.4	My heart is crying right now, but I have to fight because I want my husband back.
1:51.2	What kind of a man is Giacomo? I mean he's young he's 32. Is he resilient?
1:56.4	Will he be able to cope with the conditions in prison in Libya?
2:01.3	No, that's, I know my husband very well.
	...

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