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IMMIGRATION

Migrants thrown into sea ‘for being Christian’

Italian police said on Thursday they had arrested 15 African Muslim migrants after witnesses said they had thrown 12 Christian passengers overboard following a brawl on a boat heading to Italy.

Migrants thrown into sea 'for being Christian'
Photo: HO Italian Navy

The victims were "of Christian faith, compared to their attackers who were of Muslim faith," police said in a statement, saying the 15 people arrested were accused of "multiple aggravated murder motivated by religious hate".

The incident aboard the rubber dinghy, which was carrying about 100 migrants, took place in the Strait of Sicily, between Tunisia and Italy.

According to a group of Nigerian and Ghanaian survivors, a fight broke out over religion, with a group of Muslim passengers threatening the Nigerians and Ghanaians after the latter – who were in the minority – declared themselves to be Christians.

"The threats then materialised and 12 people, all Nigerian and Ghanaian, are believed to have drowned in the Mediterranean," the statement added.

The 15 migrants arrested over the attack on their arrival in Palermo were from Ivory Coast, Mali and Senegal.

In a separate migrant tragedy, as many as 41 migrants were feared drowned after refugee boat sank in the Mediterranean, Italian media reported.

Four survivors reported the incident to Italian police and humanitarian organizations.

   

IMMIGRATION

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

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

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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