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. Coastguards managed to take control of the vessel, the Sierra Leone-flagged Ezadeen, after landing on it by helicopter, a statement said. Facing difficult weather conditions, they are trying to take the vessel to an Italian port. The cargo ship had been drifting powerless after running out of fuel about 40 miles from Italy's southern coast with as many as 450 people onboard. The ship was built almost 50 years ago to carry livestock, a Website tracking maritime movements said. The nationality of the migrants was not yet known, a coastguard spokesman said, but there are women and children on board. It is the third such migrant ship in the past two weeks as smugglers turn to abandoning old ships in a shift in tactics. – Reuters
