Rome - A ship believed to be carrying as many as 180 illegal immigrants was still missing yesterday after sending a distress signal from waters off southern Italy on Saturday evening.
The Brindisi coastguard searched all weekend for the ship with speedboats and a helicopter but found nothing.
"The search is continuing," a spokesman said yesterday. Greek radio operators picked up the signal on Saturday and transferred it to Italy, which estimated the boat to be 2430 nautical miles off the coast of Brindisi.
Italian radio said the vessel was carrying at least 180 people. Hundreds of boats ply the Adriatic Sea, many of them bringing illegal immigrants to Italy from Greece, Turkey and the Croatian and Albanian coasts.