Italian media yesterday detailed how migrants, including Nigerians attempting to cross into Italy perished off the Libyan coast
Thirty-one migrants, including nine women, drowned off the coast of Libya during an attempted crossing to Italy according to survivors who managed to complete the journey, Italian media reported.
A dinghy carrying 53 migrants capsized on Friday evening, and witnesses
said 31 of those who had been thrown off it drowned in the accident.
Some of them are believed to be Nigerians.
The twenty-two survivors,
who come from Nigeria, Gambia, Benin and Senegal, said the dinghy had
capsized after three days at sea. They were rescued by a passing
merchant ship and taken to Lampedusa Island, the reports said.
Italian Interior Minister Angelo Alfano called for human traffickers who
shuttle migrants across the sea to Italy to be stopped on Sunday, after
31 boat people drowned during an attempted crossing.
“The traffic
of human beings must end. We need to stop the merchants of death. The
deaths off the Libyan coast and the terrible stories told by the
survivors show the need for a real collaboration between countries to
stop this string of tragic events,” Alfano said.
He called for “the
network of collaboration to be strengthened with the countries where the
migratory flows begin” and slammed “the wicked commerce of men who
place their trust in the death merchants, who are but cynical profiteers
of a state of emergency.”
As the number of boat immigrants
attempting the crossing soars in the good weather, rescuers saved
another 450 people trying to reach Italy on Friday and Saturday,
increasing tensions at the already crowded refugee centre on the island.
Another 92 migrants — including 16 women — were rescued Sunday morning
in the Strait of Sicily after their boat got into difficulty.
Since
1999, more than 200,000 people have arrived on Lampedusa — which is
closer to North Africa than Italy — making it, along with the
Greece-Turkey border, one of the biggest gateways for undocumented
migrants and refugees into the European Union.
In nearby Malta, 112
migrants were saved from their drifting dinghy overnight Saturday in a
13-hour operation during which eight of those rescued were airlifted to
hospital by helicopter for urgent medical attention.
That group —
which included 20 women and four children — was suffering from
exhaustion, dehydration and sun stroke, a Maltese army spokesman said.
The Pope arrived on a Sicilian island to pray for boat migrants who
have died trying to land there – at the same time as nearly 200
immigrants from Africa were being detained.
Pope Francis was to throw a wreath of flowers into the sea off Lampedusa in memory of those who have drowned over the years.
The Vatican said he had been “profoundly touched” by the flood of immigration to the tiny island.
Just as his plane landed on the island in his first trip outside Rome, a
large group of immigrants was being escorted into the port on a coast
guard boat.
All were described as in “good” condition before they were taken away by bus to be processed.
The latest arrivals bring the number of migrants to land on Malta in
July to 880 — an all-time record for a month — while 1,200 people in
total have landed on the island so far this year.
Tensions between
the migrants, who are held in overcrowded detention facilities while
their status is processed, and residents are frequent.
Pope Francis was also due to meet groups of immigrants who have successfully made the crossing.
His grandparents emigrated to Argentina from Italy, and as archbishop
of Buenos Aires he denounced the exploitation of migrants as “slavery”
and said those who did nothing to help them were complicit by their
silence.
The anti-immigration Northern League party is again fanning
the flames of racism in Italy, just days after a plea from Pope Francis
for greater tolerance in the predominantly Catholic country.
The
pope last Monday flew on his first trip outside Rome to the tiny of
island of Lampedusa to “cry for the dead” migrants and refugees who
perish trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.
He urged people
to heed “the cries of others” on a trip that humanitarian organisations
and Italian parliament speaker Laura Boldrini, a former United Nations
refugee worker, hailed as “historic”.
But some politicians, who are
little inclined to defend secularism in Italy on issues such as
crucifixes in churches, abortion or gay marriage, called for greater
“autonomy” from the Church.
Fabrizio Cicchitto, a deputy from Silvio
Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party, said there was a difference
between “religious preaching” and “a state handling a difficult, complex
and insidious phenomenon”.
Lawmakers from the Northern League have
gone further, calling on the pontiff to provide “money and land to house
immigrants” who land in Europe.
The debate has taken a sinister
twist after the deputy speaker of the Italian Senate, Roberto Calderoli,
a leading member of the Northern League, compared Italy’s first black
minister to an orangutan.
The remarks against Integration Minister
Cecile Kyenge have been condemned by most politicians, with Prime
Minister Enrico Letta speaking of a “shameful chapter” for the country
and President Giorgio Napolitano saying they were an example of
“barbarism”.
Calderoli said the jibe was intended as a “joke” and added insult to injury saying he “liked animals a lot”.
The Northern League on Monday even decided to capitalise on the
publicity it is receiving and announced it would hold a demonstration
against illegal immigration in Turin on September 7.
Kyenge, a doctor and an Italian citizen of Congolese origin, says she has received daily threats since being nominated.
Her reaction has been low-key but she has said the slur shows “a lack
of knowledge of others and of the phenomenon of migration, as well as an
absence of culture of immigration”.
The centre-left Democratic
Party has been equally critical and leading senator Luigi Zanda said
Kyenge’s proposal on a law to allow children of immigrants to acquire
Italian citizenship should now be adopted as quickly as possible.
Historically a land of emigration, Italy’s foreign-born population has
increased exponentially over the last two decades ever since the wave of
immigration from Albania in 1992.
Since the revolutions in Tunisia
and Libya there has also been an increased influx of migrant workers
from sub-Saharan Africa transiting through these countries.
In 10
years, between 2002 and 2012, the share of immigrants in the population
has tripled to reach 7.9 percent, according to figures from the labour
ministry.
At a meeting in Rome on Monday, Letta and his Maltese
counterpart Joseph Muscat called for greater assistance from the
European Union to manage undocumented migration.
Muscat, who last
week threatened to send migrants back to Libya, said the situation was
“unsustainable” since there were no EU rules on the “pushback and push
forward of migrants” to other parts of the EU.
A former member of
the Christian Democratic party, Letta said it was “fundamental to apply
the pope’s appeal launched in Lampedusa: ‘Never again’.”
The United
Nations says thousands of people have drowned in recent years trying to
reach Italian shores and 40 have died so far this year.
Italy has
come under fire from groups as diverse as the Vatican and the European
Commission for its strict new anti-immigration laws, which were passed
in early July.
Under the legislation, illegal immigrants are liable
to pay a fine of 10,000 euros (£8,700; $14,200) and can now be detained
by the authorities for up to six months.
In addition, people who knowingly house undocumented migrants can now face up to three years in prison.
The new law also permits the formation of unarmed citizen patrol groups to help police keep order.
The European Commission is investigating the new laws to see if they comply with existing EU legislation on immigration.
“Italy is absolutely not a racist country. We just want to be sure that
the immigrants who arrive on our land want to be here to work, not to
make crimes,” says Paolo Grimaldi, an MP for the right-wing Northern
League.
Mr Grimaldi, whose party leader, Interior Minister Roberto
Maroni, ushered the new law through parliament, firmly believes Italy is
facing an emergency.
With nearly 37,000 immigrants arriving on their shores last year, mostly via boats from Libya and Tunisia, many Italians agree.
“There are too many people. You see in the city, on the streets in
Milan, two million immigrants, I think,” says one Milanese man, who did
not want to give his name.
“I want to help people who are poorer
than me, but I want to know where they come from and what they are going
to do,” says Martina, a 23-year-old Northern League supporter. “It is
better if they come here legally.”
According to Saskia Sassen, an
expert on European immigration at Columbia University in New York,
Italy’s new laws could be the beginning of “a catastrophic phase” for
not only migrants but also Italian citizens.
“This law really alters the landscape by criminalising the violation,” she says.
“In the past you were in violation of the law. That doesn’t mean you
were a criminal. This law means if you break the law, now you are
considered a criminal. That’s a big deal.”
Mr Grimaldi readily
admits that almost no illegal immigrants would be able to pay a
10,000-euro fine. In fact, he says, that is the point.
European
Union laws oblige all 25 countries party to the Schengen Agreement,
which allows passport-free travel across the area, to allow illegal
immigrants to make two “mistakes”, and the new Italian law makes such
“mistakes” more likely.
“We want to expel these illegal immigrants to their country of provenance,” Mr Grimaldi says.
“If they have already been arrested for something before, if they don’t pay the fine, we will have recidivism.”
The immigrant will have made two “mistakes”, and “so then we can make the expulsion”.
Italy issues very few visas to people who are already living in the
country, and demand for work permits from potential immigrants greatly
outstrips supply.
It quickly becomes a Catch-22 situation – illegal
immigrants who have no visa are unable to get a job; those without a job
are unable to get a visa.
As a result, both illegal and legal migrants have become an increasingly obvious presence on the streets of Italian cities.
Source: The Nation
