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Speedy disappearance of promised boats
Some speedboats reportedly brought by the Italian Red Cross for tsunami relief work and later to be handed over to a local volunteer organisation have mysteriously gone missing, the organization claims.Officials of the organisation, Sea Rescue Institute of Sri Lanka (Sri-SL) said Italian Red Cross representative Dr. Pino Ungaro had initially promised them 10 boats. But they were subsequently told that the boats had gone missing.

Patrick Fuller, the spokesman for The International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) in Colombo said that Dr. Ungaro served as a logistician helping in tsunami relief operations and returned to Italy. However, Mr. Fuller claims that the local organization had approached Mr. Ungaro regarding the boats but they had been told that they could do little as the Italian Red Cross was not in boat distribution as part of their post -tsunami recovery work.

However, officials of Sri-SL claim they had negotiated with Dr. Ungaro who had been involved in post-tsunami work for six months in Sri Lanka.According to them, Dr. Ungaro had initially said that 11 boats had been imported out of which six boats had gone “missing” while they were on route to the north. He had then promised to give them at least two from the remaining five boats.
Dr. Ungaro when contacted by the organization had reportedly told them that the remaining four boats also had also gone ‘missing’ and therefore he had none to handover.

He had reportedly told them that if they received any information about the boats to inform him. Officials said they had requested for the boats to carryout their operations which included midsea rescue operations.

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