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IMMIGRATION

Another 900 migrants rescued in Med: Italian coastguard

Another 900 migrants have been rescued from stricken boats off Libya, Italy's coastguard said Wednesday, three days before the end of what is already a record year for arrivals at the country's southern ports.

Published: 29 December 2016 07:49 CET
Another 900 migrants rescued in Med: Italian coastguard
Some 180,300 migrants had been registered this year at Italian ports prior to the latest rescues. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

Most of the latest batch of migrants were picked up overnight from two wooden boats travelling together and around 40 people were rescued from another boat at dawn.

Around 400 were rescued by the Aquarius, a rescue boat operated by charity SOS Mediterranee, which said the migrants it had taken on board included Eritreans, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Somalians and Syrians.

According to the Italian Interior Ministry, some 180,300 migrants had been registered this year at Italian ports prior to the latest rescues. This compares with a previous annual record of 170,100, recorded in 2014.

UN bodies say more than 5,000 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean, most of them on the Libya-Italy route. The Libyan Red Cross said on Wednesday that 11 drowned bodies had been found on beaches near Tripoli in the West of the country.

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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