For the first time since the start of the insurgency Jamahiriya, a boat carrying migrants from Libya arrived in Italy on the night of Saturday 26 to Sunday, March 27. The boat carrying about 350 people, including 80 women and 12 children, mostly from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. She had left Tripoli on Thursday, according Mussie Zerai, an Italian priest who has been in direct contact with the vessel.
"They told me that the military [Libyan] asked them to leave," he said, adding that four or five other boats carrying a total of about a thousand people left the Libyan coast bound for Italy. "Until now, the only migrants arriving in Lampedusa were Tunisians. This is the first boat from Libya with people fleeing the escalating military attacks and reprisals," said Laura Boldrini holder Speaking of Italy Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), holding that these refugees were in need of "international protection".
Upon arrival, the migrants must be re-loaded onto a ferry to Porto Empedocle, near Agrigento in Sicily, where they will be transferred to refugee shelters, said the Italian news agency Ansa. Italy fear a wave of at least 200 000-300 000 immigrants in a fall of Muammar Gaddafi and called for now in vain, using the European Union.
The country is already facing an influx of thousands of illegal immigrants from Tunisia. On the island of Lampedusa alone, more than 15,000 Tunisians arrived since the fall of the regime of Ben Ali. They are progressively transferred by air or sea to detention centers or shelters for refugees in all of Italy.
But given the incessant arrivals, they were still about 5,000 Saturday to pile on the island in precarious sanitary conditions. A treaty signed in August 2008 between Italy and Libya had led, according to Italian authorities, the 94% decrease in landings of illegal immigrants in Italy, with a policy of immediate discharge, also criticized by advocacy groups human rights.
But after the start of the Libyan uprising suppressed in the blood and the introduction of Western military intervention, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi said he would stop "the fight against illegal immigration so that millions of blacks flocking to the Europe ". 
"They told me that the military [Libyan] asked them to leave," he said, adding that four or five other boats carrying a total of about a thousand people left the Libyan coast bound for Italy. "Until now, the only migrants arriving in Lampedusa were Tunisians. This is the first boat from Libya with people fleeing the escalating military attacks and reprisals," said Laura Boldrini holder Speaking of Italy Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), holding that these refugees were in need of "international protection".
Upon arrival, the migrants must be re-loaded onto a ferry to Porto Empedocle, near Agrigento in Sicily, where they will be transferred to refugee shelters, said the Italian news agency Ansa. Italy fear a wave of at least 200 000-300 000 immigrants in a fall of Muammar Gaddafi and called for now in vain, using the European Union.
The country is already facing an influx of thousands of illegal immigrants from Tunisia. On the island of Lampedusa alone, more than 15,000 Tunisians arrived since the fall of the regime of Ben Ali. They are progressively transferred by air or sea to detention centers or shelters for refugees in all of Italy.
But given the incessant arrivals, they were still about 5,000 Saturday to pile on the island in precarious sanitary conditions. A treaty signed in August 2008 between Italy and Libya had led, according to Italian authorities, the 94% decrease in landings of illegal immigrants in Italy, with a policy of immediate discharge, also criticized by advocacy groups human rights.
But after the start of the Libyan uprising suppressed in the blood and the introduction of Western military intervention, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi said he would stop "the fight against illegal immigration so that millions of blacks flocking to the Europe ".
No comments:
Post a Comment