Wave of 640 migrants smuggled to tiny Italian island from Tunisia

With the return of calm seas, migrant smugglers launched a rating of boats from Tunisia in the course of the weekend and their passengers reached a tiny Italian island by the tons of. A physique was present in one of many boats, Italian information experiences mentioned, whereas survivors of two rescues mentioned 23 individuals had been lacking.

Dozens of the migrants sat Monday morning close to Lampedusa’s port awaiting switch to the island’s overcrowded shelter or ultimately to Sicily or the Italian mainland.

Earlier Monday, a fishing boat off Lampedusa aided a distressed migrant boat that contained 34 individuals and a physique, the Italian information company ANSA mentioned. Survivors reportedly informed rescuers that some 20 fellow passengers had been lacking from the boat, which had set out from a Tunisian port on Saturday evening.

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A couple of hours later, the Italian Coast Guard rescued 42 migrants from a ship foundering off Lampedusa after setting out Saturday evening from Tunisia, ANSA mentioned. Survivors informed rescuers that three males had been lacking.

The Italian Coast Guard, when contacted by The AP, declined to touch upon the reported rescues.

On Sunday, with seas calm after 4 days of tough circumstances, a complete of 640 migrants reached Lampedusa, whereas greater than 200 got here ashore from a number of boats on Monday. In many instances, Italian coast guard or different army vessels took on migrants after they approached the island, together with transferring the 34 from the fishing boat.

A migrant disembarks from a ship on August 5, 2022, in Lampedusa, Italy. Lampedusa noticed tons of of migrants attain the Italian island on Sunday. (Antonio Masiello/Getty Images)

Last week, Italian authorities used industrial ferries and army vessels to switch among the migrants who had been rescued earlier from Lampedusa to Sicily or to the Italian mainland. Those transfers lastly introduced Lampedusa’s migrant heart under its roughly 400-person capability. But with the slew of boats arriving beginning on Sunday, the variety of migrants there rapidly swelled to just about 1,100, and authorities had been scrambling anew to make association for extra transfers off the island.

Separately, the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders mentioned its rescue vessel Geo Barents, got here to the help of 75 migrants in a picket boat foundering in worldwide waters off Libya on Monday. Among the passengers are 40 minors.

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The rescue vessel should now watch for Italian authorities to assign it a port to disembark the migrants. Italy’s right-wing authorities has been assigning ports in northern Italy, removed from the rescue space, to attempt to restrict charity boats’ time at sea. Government officers have contended that the charity boats encourage unlawful migration by offering security to the smugglers’ passengers.

Although far-right Premier Giorgia Meloni has led a crackdown each on smugglers and on the charity vessels that incessantly rescue passengers from unseaworthy boats launched from Tunisia, Libya and Turkey, migrants maintain setting out on the damaging voyage within the Central Mediterranean in hopes of discovering work or kin in Europe.

According to figures offered by the Italian Interior Ministry, by Monday, greater than 36,600 migrants had arrived in Italy because the begin of the yr. That’s greater than 4 occasions the quantity for a similar interval in every of the 2 earlier years.

Italy denies the asylum bids of many of the migrants as a result of they’re fleeing poverty, not conflict or persecution. But since barely a handful of nations have repatriation accords with Italy, the migrants who lose asylum bids usually keep in Italy for years in a form of authorized limbo, or attempt to make their solution to northern European international locations.

Italy’s pleas to fellow European Union nations to tackle among the migrants have largely gone unheeded for years now.