Theresa Maggio

Baby Favour, newly orphaned immigrant from Nigeria, saved from a shipwreck by a woman from Cameroon who watched the baby's mother drown, a burn victim who was drowning herself, was met by the mayor of Palermo, Leoluca Orlando when she arrived in the Sicilian capital accompanied by the chief of police, Maria Volpe. The  Read More 

It is hard to keep up with all the shipwrecks and dead and orphaned and drowned immigrants of all ages. When the sea is calm, the wave of immigrants from Africa swells.

Little Favour from Nigeria lost both her parents when the rubber raft they were on flipped all the passengers into the Mediterranean Sea, but she was saved by a 52-year-old Cameroonian woman with severe burns over her body. The Cameroonian woman is named Sofii and is in hospital in Palermo. Little Favour, in the  Read More 

This overcrowded overhauled fishing trawler carrying some 600 immigrants capsized in the Mediterranean Wednesday. Click on the caption to read the story in The Guardian.
From The Guardian: "The boat is the latest of at least 38 smuggling vessels to be rescued in the southern Mediterranean since the start of the week. More than 6,000 lives have  Read More 

Bernadette, one of the hundreds saved Wednesday by the non profit German and French rescue ship the Aquarius, gave birth to a baby boy around 5 p.m.. When it was learned the mother had gone into labor the ship went full steam ahead towards Sardinia so the child could be born on land, but  Read More 

Imagine the horror.
A boat with about 600 migrants aboard capsized 18 miles off the coast of Libya. More than 500 immigrants were saved but already seven deaths have been ascertained and more are feared drowned. The immigrants had made a satellite telephone call for help and the Italian ships Bettica and Bergamini arrived. The boat had capsized because it  Read More 

In the past 24 hours more than 2,700 African immigrants have been plucked from the sea between Libya and Europe. The private non profit rescue ship Aquarius first picked up 132 shipwreck victims from a Zodiac rubber raft. Among them, 92 men, 38 women, of whom 7 were pregnant, 14 babies under five years of age and 19 minors unaccompanied by their  Read More 

Thousands of students from all over Italy converged on Palermo to commemorate the death, by murder, of anti Mafia Judge Giovanni Falcone who gave his life in the fight against the Mafia. He was killed in Capaci on the road from the airport, with his wife and police escort, by a bomb planted on  Read More 

Rest in Peace.

A woman refugee who arrived in Palermo on a rescue ship Friday has died in hospital from stress of the voyage, according to a report in today's La Repubblica.
She arrived in grave condition: malnourished, stressed from the voyage through the desert, the long wait on the African coast and the sea crossing. Today,  Read More 

From Vice News, a story by Rebecca Murray:
In an impoverished and violent neighborhood on the edge of Sebha in Libya's southern desert, 30-year-old Ibrahim from Burkina Faso is struggling to survive — and to move on.

He's stuck here, working at a laundry to make money, because he needs to save for the ride north over 400 miles of desert to Libya's coast, and a place on a boat to Italy. It's dangerous for migrants like him, who pass through here on the way from sub-Saharan Africa to what they hope is a better life in Europe.

Warring local tribes, and gangs preying on migrants, are a daily threat.

"All the time guns are turned against us to rob us," said Ibrahim, who would only give a first name, while gesturing towards a group of men also from Burkina Faso, gathered warily outside a dilapidated storefront. "Four months ago I was actually shot here by one man."

Last year, friends who had made it to Europe called Ibrahim at home and told him about how they were doing better there. So he left behind his wife, newborn baby, and work selling goods on the street, and invested $300 for the brutal desert trek with smugglers to reach Sebha. Ibrahim now needs the same amount to reach the coast at Tripoli, and up to $1,000 more to cross the Mediterranean Sea. That's a staggering sum for someone from Burkina Faso, where gross national income per capita is $700. Read More