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MIGRANT CRISIS

Over 1,000 migrants brought to safety at Italian ports: coastguard

More than 1,000 migrants were brought to safety at two Italian ports after the overcrowded boats they were on encountered problems in the Mediterranean, the coastguard said Saturday.

Published: 11 March 2023 15:37 CET
Over 1,000 migrants brought to safety at Italian ports: coastguard
Italian coastguard officers standing near a body recovered after a migrant boat shipwreck February 27, 2023 near the Le Castella beach in Isola di Capo Rizzuto, south of Crotone. (Photo by Alessandro SERRANO / AFP)

The rescues came the same day as a body was discovered of the 74th victim of the deadly shipwreck nearly two weeks ago — that of a female child between five and six years of age, according to news agency AGI.

The February 26th shipwreck, which occurred just off the shore of Calabria, has drawn sharp criticism of the right-wing government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni for its failure to intervene timely to save the boat.

The coastguard said Saturday it was wrapping up a large rescue operation that began Friday after three boats were spotted drifting off Italy’s coasts.

One was south of the Calabrian city of Crotone and two further south off Roccella Ionica.

Coastguard videos showed a large fishing boat pitching violently back and forth in nightime rough seas with dozens of people visible on the deck. Other images showed inflatable rescue boats approaching another fishing vessel
packed with people. Those 487 migrants onboard the first boat were safely brought to the port of Crotone at about 3:00 am Saturday morning, the coastguard said.

Another rescue operation in which 500 migrants were brought to safety aboard a coastguard ship was wrapping up, it said. News agency ANSA had earlier reported that the ship had docked at the port of Reggio Calabria.

A third boat carrying 379 people was rescued by two coastguard patrol boats and the migrants transferred to a Navy ship headed to the Sicilian port of Augusta, it said.

Italy’s defence ministry said it had begun to air transfers of migrants away from the crowded migrant centre on the island of Lampedusa, which it said was now over capacity.

The recent shipwreck has put the government on the defensive. On Thursday, Meloni held a cabinet meeting at Cutro, near the disaster site, and announced a new decree that included stiffer prison sentences for human traffickers, but no new measures to help save lives.

Her far-right Brothers of Italy party, which won elections last year, had promised to curb arrivals, but Italy has recently seen a sharp rise in the number of migrants attempting to reach its shores via the dangerous Mediterranean crossing.

The interior ministry says more than 17,500 people have arrived by sea so far this year — almost three times the number for the same period last year.

READ ALSO: Italian PM vows to crack down on traffickers at migrant shipwreck site

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POLITICS

Italy considering ‘reciprocal plan’ to swap refugees with US

Italy and the United States are drawing up a plan to exchange a small number of refugees in a reported bid to deter illegal migration, an Italian government source said on Friday.

Published: 31 May 2024 17:13 CEST
Italy considering 'reciprocal plan' to swap refugees with US

“A reciprocal plan is currently being studied, according to which the US would host refugees present in Libya who want to go to Europe,” a source in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s office said.

At the same time, “some European Mediterranean states would host a few dozen South American refugees”, the source said.

The source was responding to a report by CBS News in the United States, which suggested that President Joe Biden’s administration was also in talks with Greece.

CBS said refugees would be selected at immigration offices set up by the United States last year in four Latin American countries.

It said 500 people could be sent both to Italy and Greece, though the source in Meloni’s office said that figure was “completely misleading”.

Rome is looking to accept “about 20 Venezuelan refugees of Italian origin” who would be able to work in Italy, the source said.

The plan would be “very advantageous for Italy and the European states of first arrival”, the source said, without elaborating.

A separate source at Italy’s interior ministry said Rome would “never assent to the relocation of hundreds of people on its national territory in view of its already considerable efforts in receiving migrants”.

In Athens, Greek migration minister Dimitris Kairidis dismissed the report.

“The CBS report is untrue. There is neither an agreement nor a request from the US to resettle legal immigrants in Greece,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

More than 2.4 million migrants crossed the southern US border in 2023 alone, largely from Central America and Venezuela, as they flee poverty, violence and natural disasters exacerbated by climate change.

Meanwhile Italy is among the first ports of call for migrants crossing from North Africa into Europe, recording almost 160,000 irregular arrivals by boat across the central Mediterranean last year.

Meloni’s government has made stopping irregular migration into Italy a priority.

It has sought to speed up asylum processing requests while signing new deals with departure countries.

It has also tried to deter migrants by setting up a new processing centre in Albania and limiting the activities of charities that operate rescue boats in the Mediterranean Sea.

Nearly 21,000 migrants have landed on Italy’s shores so far this year, compared to more than 50,000 in the same period last year, according to government data.

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