CAIRO: Five Italian fishing vessels that had been detained by Egypt on Thursday morning have been released, Italian sources confirmed to Bikyamasr.com on Friday morning. The government sources said that during Thursday evening, the boats had been released from detention and were en route to Mazara del Vallo. The boats had been detained earlier on Thursday by an Egyptian coastal security patrol after being discovered only 22 miles from the northern Egyptian city of Alexandria. The “Flori”, “Eros”, “Atlantide”, “Ghibli I” and “Luna Rossa” fishing boats carrying an Italian and African crew of 35 sailors “were held for only a couple of hours and released after receiving a warning to fish outside Egypt's territorial waters,” Italian media also reported. The detaining came as Italy's Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi was in Egypt on Thursday for meetings with the country's top officials. When the news of the boats release was announced, Terzi said he was “very satisfied” with the positive end to what could have been a diplomatic flap. He said that the release “was made possible by the timely and effective intervention of the Italian Embassy in Cairo and above all by the extraordinary helpfulness of the Egyptian authorities.”
