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IMMIGRATION

Maritime rescue crew assists migrant boat

Spanish authorities on Sunday intercepted a wooden fishing boat packed with 32 illegal immigrants, including a woman and her baby, which was trying to make landfall off the coast of Cadiz, a maritime rescue services spokesman said.

Published: 17 March 2013 17:13 CET
Maritime rescue crew assists migrant boat
Africans hoping to make their home in Europe are tended by Red Cross staff. Photo: Desiree Martin/AFP

A maritime rescue service ship made contact with the boat off the coast of the province of Cadiz and took the would-be immigrants to the port of Tarifa, he said.

The 32 passengers of the fishing boat, including the woman and her child, appeared to be in good health, the spokesman added.

The maritime rescue service was alerted to the presence of the boat after one of the migrants called Spanish emergency services to ask for help because the vessel's motor had stopped working.

Thousands of people from Africa regularly attempt to cross from Morocco into Spain on makeshift boats each year.

Authorities fear many of those who attempt the crossing by sea die of thirst, hunger or exposure.

IMMIGRATION

France ‘will not welcome migrants’ from Lampedusa: interior minister

France "will not welcome migrants" from the island, Gérald Darmanin has insisted

Published: 20 September 2023 09:06 CEST
France 'will not welcome migrants' from Lampedusa: interior minister

France will not welcome any migrants coming from Italy’s Lampedusa, interior minister Gérald Darmanin has said after the Mediterranean island saw record numbers of arrivals.

Some 8,500 people arrived on Lampedusa on 199 boats between Monday and Wednesday last week, according to the UN’s International Organisation for
Migration, prompting European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to travel there Sunday to announce an emergency action plan.

According to Darmanin, Paris told Italy it was “ready to help them return people to countries with which we have good diplomatic relations”, giving the
example of Ivory Coast and Senegal.

But France “will not welcome migrants” from the island, he said, speaking on French television on Tuesday evening.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has called on Italy’s EU partners to share more of the responsibility.

The recent arrivals on Lampedusa equal more than the whole population of the tiny Italian island.

The mass movement has stoked the immigration debate in France, where political parties in the country’s hung parliament are wrangling over a draft law governing new arrivals.

France is expected to face a call from Pope Francis for greater tolerance towards migrants later this week during a high-profile visit to Mediterranean city Marseille, where the pontiff will meet President Emmanuel Macron and celebrate mass before tens of thousands in a stadium.

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