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IMMIGRATION

Two migrant children die at sea between Morocco and Spain: NGO

Two seven-year-old children have died in the Mediterranean as hundreds of migrants sought to reach Spain from Morocco, a Spanish NGO said Saturday.

Two migrant children die at sea between Morocco and Spain: NGO
One of the Spanish sea rescue service's vessels with survivors picked up. Photo: Salvamento Maritimo
Meanwhile 16 Moroccan migrants were reported missing after another boat capsized off the coast of north Morocco.
   
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) 42,500 migrants have arrived by sea in Spain since the start of the year and another 433 have been killed during the journey, often made aboard overcrowded and unseaworthy vessels. The death toll is already three times higher than the figure for the whole of 2017. 
 
The Spanish sea rescue service said on Twitter that 53 people had been rescued in the waters between Spain and northern Africa as migrant boat took on water. However “two lifeless bodies” were also recovered. The Caminando Fronteras NGO, which helps migrants, said that the dead bodies were those of two seven-year-old children.
 
   
Increasing numbers of Moroccans and sub-Saharan migrants are seeking to enter Spain, either by sea or by smuggling themselves into the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, which are in Morocco and are the only European territories in Africa.

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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