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MIGRANT CRISIS

More than 20 people feared dead in shipwrecks off Italy

More than 20 people are feared to have drowned off Italy, the UN's refugee agency said on Monday, as good weather prompted fresh attempts at the perilous Mediterranean crossing.

Published: 24 April 2023 18:02 CEST
A wreath of flowers thrown into the sea at the site of a February 26, 2023 shipwreck off Steccato di Cutro, southern Italy.
A wreath of flowers thrown into the sea at the site of a February 26, 2023 shipwreck off Steccato di Cutro, southern Italy. Photo by Gianluca CHININEA / AFP.

“Two shipwrecks off Lampedusa with 22 missing. Condolences to those who have lost family members at sea,” Chiara Cardoletti, the UNHCR’s representative for Italy, said on Twitter.

“Action is needed to stabilise the situation in countries of origin and transit, reducing the reasons that drive so many people to risk their lives at sea,” she said.

The 36 survivors of the first shipwreck told the Italian coastguard that 19 people on board their boat had died after it partially capsized, a UNHCR press officer said.

Three other people were reported to have died in a second incident, Federico Fossi told AFP, warning however that the details were hazy.

The Italian coastguard was unavailable for comment and it was unclear when the disasters happened.

Survivors of the first shipwreck – including six minors – had been travelling on a seven-metre-long boat that sank in Italian waters, according to the Repubblica daily. They were rescued by a fishing boat, it said.

Those saved hailed from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Guinea, the Ivory Coast and Sudan, and had paid between 500 and 600 euros ($650) for the crossing, according to the Stampa daily.

After four days of poor conditions at sea, the number of boats attempting the crossing to the Italian island of Lampedusa rose again on Sunday.

By Monday, there were 1,094 people in Lampedusa’s migrant reception centre, built to take just under 400 people.

Over 36,000 people have arrived by sea in Italy this year, compared to some 9,000 in the same period last year, according to the interior ministry.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has recorded 537 deaths or disappearances in the central Mediterranean – the world’s most dangerous crossing – so far this year.

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MIGRANT CRISIS

Italy joins countries calling for asylum centres outside EU

Italy is one of 15 EU member states who have sent a joint letter to the European Commission demanding a further tightening of the bloc's asylum policy, which will make it easier to transfer undocumented migrants to third countries, such as Rwanda, including when they are rescued at sea.

Published: 17 May 2024 11:59 CEST
Italy joins countries calling for asylum centres outside EU

The countries presented their joint stance in a letter dated May 15th to the European Commission, which was made public on Thursday.

It was sent less than a month before European Parliament elections across the 27-nation European Union, in which far-right anti-immigration parties are forecast to make gains.

Italy, Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania signed the letter.

In it, they ask the European Union’s executive arm to “propose new ways and solutions to prevent irregular migration to Europe”.

They want the EU to toughen its asylum and migration pact, which introduces tighter border controls and seeks to expedite the deportation of rejected asylum-seekers.

The pact, to be operational from 2026, will speed up the vetting of people arriving without documents and establish new border detention centres.

The 15 countries also want to see mechanisms to detect and intercept migrant boats and take them “to a predetermined place of safety in a partner country outside the EU, where durable solutions for those migrants could be found”.

They said it should be easier to send asylum seekers to third countries while their requests for protection are assessed.

They cited as a model a controversial deal Italy has struck with Albania, under which thousands of asylum-seekers picked up at sea can be taken to holding camps in the non-EU Balkan country as their cases are processed.

READ ALSO: Italy approves controversial Albanian migrant deal

The European Commission said it would study the letter, though a spokeswoman, Anitta Hipper, added that “all our work and focus is set now on the implementation” of the migration and asylum pact.

Differences with UK-Rwanda model

EU law says people entering the bloc without documents can be sent to an outside country where they could have requested asylum – so long as that country is deemed safe and the applicant has a genuine link with it.

That condition differentiates it from a scheme set up by non-EU Britain under which irregular arrivals will be denied the right to request asylum in the UK and sent instead to Rwanda.

Rights groups accuse the African country – ruled with an iron fist by President Paul Kagame since the end of the 1994 genocide that killed around 800,000 people – of cracking down on free speech and political opposition.

The 15 nations said they want the EU to make deals with third countries along main migration routes, citing the example of the arrangement it made with Turkey in 2016 to take in Syrian refugees fleeing war.

Camille Le Coz, associate director of the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank, said: “In legal terms, these models pose many questions and are very costly in terms of resource mobilisation and at the operational level.”

The opening date for migrant reception centres in Albania set up under the deal with Italy had been delayed, she noted.

With the June 6th-9th EU elections leading to a new European Commission, the proposals put forward by the 15 countries would go into the inbox of the next commission for it to weigh them, she said.

She also noted that EU heavyweights France, Germany and Spain had not signed onto the letter.

“For certain member countries, the priority really is the implementation of the pact, and that in itself is already a huge task,” Le Coz said.

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