Although the illegal trade usually slows for the winter, at least 228 people died in January while trying to reach Italy, mostly in smaller boats and inflatable vessels, according to the European Border and Coast Guard Agency.
The Russian military also appeared to have confiscated 16 coastal security boats — large, inflatable vessels with outboard engines — and was seen towing them on the road outside Poti, a Black Sea port.
An officer who gave his name only as Mostafa, said his colleagues had not been paid in months and that the port only had one functioning coastguard vessel – an inflatable no bigger than some smuggling boats.
Uncertain how to react to this bit of Israeli political warfare being staged in its territorial waters, the Egyptian Navy circled the vessels with inflatable motorboats in a gentle effort to get them away from each other and, ultimately, back into Israel, less than a nautical mile away.
About 130 all-terrain rescue vehicles and 335 inflatable boats and other vessels were being used to search for the missing, the ministry said.
"The Greenland Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum has established some of the most stringent operating regulations anywhere globally, which mirror those applied in the Norwegian North Sea". Greenpeace said Mr Naidoo travelled to the Leiv Eiriksson vessel on an inflatable speedboat launched from the group's ship Esperanza, evading a Danish navy warship.
They were then transferred on inflatable boats from the Coast Guard vessel to an Iranian coast guard ship.
As the Iraqi vessels approached, small inflatable boats were rapidly lowered into the water from the Melbourne and teams of Australian sailors, guns at the ready, piled in.
While drilling two relief wells to permanently seal its damaged well, BP has relied on inflatable booms, chemical dispersants, containment vessels and controlled burning to address the spill.
A business meeting in Tunisia prevented them staying to see Pope Francis celebrate a mass on the island, devoted to the migrants who made the dangerous crossing to southern Europe from Libya in cheap inflatable motorboats and rickety fishing vessels.
