ITALY: Prime Minister Enrico Letta's government is due to endorse plans to ramp up its surveillance capacity in the Mediterranean to try and prevent migrant deaths

Record ID: 348626

  • Title: ITALY: Prime Minister Enrico Letta's government is due to endorse plans to ramp up its surveillance capacity in the Mediterranean to try and prevent migrant deaths
  • Date: 14th October 2013
  • Summary: ROME, ITALY (OCTOBER 14, 2013) (REUTERS) ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER, ENRICO LETTA, AND FINNISH PRIME MINISTER, JYRKI KATAINEN, WALKING INTO MEDIA BRIEFING ROOM REPORTERS SEATED (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER, ENRICO LETTA, ENRICO LETTA, SAYING: "From tomorrow Italy will be operating a military and humanitarian mission, air and sea, of hugely important dimensions,
  • Embargoed: 29th October 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Italy
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: International Relations,Disasters,Politics,People
  • Reuters ID: LVACMTGXMMRBH8EMBG795U0IWYA2
  • Story Text: Italy is to step up naval and air patrols in the southern Mediterranean to try and prevent repeats of shipwrecks which have drowned hundreds of African migrants in two separate disasters in little more than a week, Prime Minister Enrico Letta said on Monday (October 14).
    At least 34 people drowned on Friday (October 11) when their boat overturned, according to the Italian navy, but with many unaccounted for, the true total could be as high as 200 or more. In a separate shipwreck on October 3, more than 350 died.
    "From tomorrow Italy will be operating a military and humanitarian mission, air and sea, of hugely important dimensions," Letta said after meeting his Finnish counterpart Jyrki Katainen in Rome on Monday.
    "For us it is intolerable that the Mediterranean has become the the sea of death. This is an initiative that we have taken. I have requested that the Prime Minister of Finland as well as other European colleagues help us, because for us today, this is an important priority. The Mediterranean Sea is our sea and we cannot tolerate what has been happening in recent days," he added.
    Italian officials have been increasingly worried by the uncontrolled surge in arrivals from a region destabilised by civil war in Syria and unrest in Egypt and elsewhere.
    Letta said the European Union border agency Frontex must be reinforced.
    Instability in North Africa and the Middle East has removed many controls which used to prevent boats setting out, and Europe has struggled to come up with a comprehensive response.
    "We must also reinforce our bilateral cooperation with the countries that these immigrants are arriving from, in particular for the migrants who are requesting asylum. I have informed the Finnish Prime Minister of the situation in Libya today and the necessity that the European Union must take steps about the situation in Libya, because we cannot tolerate an absence of collaboration with the unfortunately weak Libyan institutions," Letta said.
    Katainen pledged to furnish ships, logistical aid and training to bolster Frontex's reach.
    "We might have some vessels and know-how and personnel to send to the Mediterranean region and we are just assessing our capacity which could be used," he said.
    The two recent shipwrecks have done nothing to halt the flow of migrants heading to sea.
    A migrant boat carrying 137 people reached Italy from North Africa on Monday and more than 200 migrants arrived in ports in eastern Sicily after being rescued on Sunday (October 13) by an Italian merchant ship and by a coastguard cutter.
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