My translation of the article in today's La Repubblica:
The Italian Coast Guard announced that it coordinated 40 rescue operations in the Strait of Sicily Sicily yesterday saving 6,500 people. Working with the coast guard were the Italian Navy, non-governmental organizations,a nd European Union forces including Frontex, which is the European border police, and Eunaformed. Most of the vessels were found off the coast of Libya.
Such a high number of people saved, a record for a single day, suggests that the closing off of the of the Balkans route from Turkey to Greece via the Aegean Sea made people turn to to the Libyan coasts, where a government capable of handling the phenomenon of clandestine emigration in the hands of bands of criminals ( and probably used also as a source of funding by Islamist forces) does not exist.
In other rescue news, three hundred migrants, among them 38 women and 68 children under 18, disembarked last night at the dock of Porto Empedocle ( Province of Agrigento, southern Sicily). Almost half of these immigrants, 133 people, were suffering from scabies. The migrants were saved by the English civilian ship "Fast Sentinel" and had initially been taken to Pozzsllo, Sicily (Ragusa Province) where there was no room for them. The transfer to Porto Empedocle was made with the Italian Coast Guard's four smaller ships. The immigrants come from Eritrea, Mali, Ivory Coast and Guinea.
The Italian Coast Guard announced that it coordinated 40 rescue operations in the Strait of Sicily Sicily yesterday saving 6,500 people. Working with the coast guard were the Italian Navy, non-governmental organizations,a nd European Union forces including Frontex, which is the European border police, and Eunaformed. Most of the vessels were found off the coast of Libya.
Such a high number of people saved, a record for a single day, suggests that the closing off of the of the Balkans route from Turkey to Greece via the Aegean Sea made people turn to to the Libyan coasts, where a government capable of handling the phenomenon of clandestine emigration in the hands of bands of criminals ( and probably used also as a source of funding by Islamist forces) does not exist.
In other rescue news, three hundred migrants, among them 38 women and 68 children under 18, disembarked last night at the dock of Porto Empedocle ( Province of Agrigento, southern Sicily). Almost half of these immigrants, 133 people, were suffering from scabies. The migrants were saved by the English civilian ship "Fast Sentinel" and had initially been taken to Pozzsllo, Sicily (Ragusa Province) where there was no room for them. The transfer to Porto Empedocle was made with the Italian Coast Guard's four smaller ships. The immigrants come from Eritrea, Mali, Ivory Coast and Guinea.