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MIGRANT CRISIS

Italy’s coastguard battles to save over 3,000 migrants at sea

Italy's coastguard said it was trying on Monday to rescue 1,200 more migrants aboard two boats on the Mediterranean Sea after saving about 2,000 already over the weekend.

Published: 10 April 2023 17:35 CEST
A migrant reacts aboard the Ocean Viking ship in the Mediterranean Sea, after being rescued by NGO SOS Mediterranee
A migrant reacts aboard the Ocean Viking ship in the Mediterranean Sea, after being rescued by NGO SOS Mediterranee in October 2022. On Monday, Italy's coastguard said it was working to save thousands of migrants at sea. Photo: Vincenzo CIRCOSTA / AFP

The rescue of about 800 migrants aboard an overloaded fishing boat was ongoing, the coastguard said.

The boat was located in Italian waters more than 120 miles (190 kilometres) southeast of Syracuse, in Sicily.

The operation — involving three patrol boats and a merchant ship, all coordinated by the “Nave Peluso” coastguard boat — was described as “complex” due to the overcrowding.

A second fishing vessel carrying 400 migrants and also in Italian waters had been intercepted by the coastguard ship “Diciotti” 170 miles southeast of Capo Passero, at the southernmost tip of Sicily.

Two merchant vessels were assisting in that rescue, the coastguard said.

Alarm Phone, a hotline used by migrants in distress, said on Twitter on Monday that the people on board were “in panic”.

Alarm Phone tweeted on Sunday that, according to a woman onboard, the boat that had set off from Libya was missing its captain, and several people onboard needed medical care, including a child, a pregnant woman and a disabled person.

Three people in distress had jumped overboard and one fell unconscious, it wrote. 

READ ALSO: ‘More will drown’: Italy accused of breaking international law on migrant rescues

The coastguard said that besides the ongoing operations about 2,000 people had been saved since Friday in “a large number of rescues”.

Thousands of migrants have landed on Italy’s shores, especially the island of Lampedusa, in recent days after making the dangerous journey aboard flimsy vessels from North Africa. 

On Sunday, German aid group ResQship said at least two migrants had died and about 20 others were missing after their vessel sank overnight Saturday to Sunday after leaving Tunisia.

READ ALSO: Anger as Italy accused of illegally rejecting migrants rescued at sea

ResQship told AFP its charity boat had rescued 22 people from the shipwreck and took them to Lampedusa, helped by “good cooperation” with the Italian coastguard.

According to interior ministry figures, more than 14,000 migrants have arrived in Italy since the beginning of the year –significantly more than the 5,300 who had arrived over the same period in 2022 and the 4,300 during 2021.

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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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