MSC ARMONIA

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Latest news

Fire in laundry room

On June 10, 2024, at 6.30 a.m. an electrical fire broke out in the laundry room of the 'MSC Armnonia' in the Marghera port in Venice. The fire was soon extinguished. The port authority coordinated the intervention measures and sent a patrol and a Coast Guard patrol boat. Together with teams from the fire brigade, the operation was coordinated at the berth. There was no danger to the ship's passengers and crew. The crew immediately intervened, carried out all safety measures and evacuated the affected area. The fire brigade teams went on board the ship in cooperation with the authorities to carry out thorough checks. Medical staff from Suem 118 also intervened preventively on site to support the crew members who had been involved in the initial phase of the firefighting operation.

65 Bolivians deported from Barcelona

65 Bolivians who had arrived aboard the 'MSC Armonia', were finally deported from the port on April 11. Only four of the 69 Bolivian nationals who were on the ship, which docked in the port on April 2, have been allowed to stay. They are three siblings from the same family, and the daughter of one of these. Their parents are residents of Girona and the father has Spanish nationality. The rest, however, were taken by bus from the port where they have been held since the 'MSC Armonia' had docked. From there they were due to be flown to Santa Cruz. The cost of the flight will be covered by MSC. The cruise set sail from Brazil in mid-March, and was due to make a series of stops in the Mediterranean before reaching its final destination of Venice. When the ship arrived in Barcelona none of the 1,500 passengers were allowed to disembark due to the fake visas in possession of the group of Bolivians. The falsified documentation was not initially detected by MSC, even once the passengers had boarded and the ship had set sail. But when it was sent to the Spanish authorities ahead of the vessel’s arrival, the alarm was raised. The documents had been faked. The cruise ship was finally allowed to leave the port on April 10 with the other passengers aboard. The Bolivians, meanwhile, were held in the port until they were officially deported. The Spanish authorities rejected asylum requests that were filed by some of the group. They had been sold the tickets by a travel agent who claimed that the package included valid visas to live and work in Spain.

Cruise ship left Barcelona without 69 Bolivians

The 'MSC Armonia' which had stuck in Barcelona with around 1,500 passengers because some passengers had fake visas was able to continue its journey on April 4 at 1.30 p.m. after a two-day compulsory break. An agreement had previously been reached with the Spanish authorities regarding passengers without visas. The ship will arrive in Messina on April 6, but without the 69 passengers from Bolivia, who did not have valid Schengen visas. They have to wait in the transit area of the port of Barcelona for their situation to be clarified, accommodated on a ship provided by MSC for this period. They will probably be flown back to Bolivia at MSC's expense. An agency in South America had offered the passage and visas online and charged up to 9,200 Euros per person. This agency also canceled promised return tickets after the cruise ship left Brazil for Europe. However, the police did not rule out that the Bolivians actually wanted to get to Spain illegally.