FILE/ITALY: The total number of migrants to Italy this year has hit a record 100,000 but many arriving by boat still face a perilous journey, as two more migrants die on their way to Italy's shores

Record ID: 348773

  • Title: FILE/ITALY: The total number of migrants to Italy this year has hit a record 100,000 but many arriving by boat still face a perilous journey, as two more migrants die on their way to Italy's shores
  • Date: 16th August 2014
  • Summary: AT SEA (FILE - MAY 2014) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF ITALIAN NAVY FRIGATE WITH MIGRANTS ON DECK
  • Embargoed: 31st August 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Italy
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVAEX84Z09PY6EC4P92WRM6AVCYZ
  • Story Text: Two boat migrants died among almost 1,500 rescued by Italy in the last 24 hours as the total number reaching Italian shores this year passed 100,000, authorities said on Friday (August 15).
    Italy's Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said he was "proud to be saving lives" of migrants who have been streaming out of North Africa in rickety boats in increasing numbers for years, and without the government's efforts the Mediterranean would have become a "lake of death".
    But Alfano repeated Rome's position that the burden for patrolling the sea and saving migrants from Africa's shores must quickly pass to the European Union as a whole.
    Late on Thursday (August 14), 279 migrants on a boat that had departed from Libya were brought ashore near Ragusa in southeast Sicily, and on Friday 212 were rescued from another boat near Reggio Calabria at the toe of mainland Italy. Another 1,004 arrived at the port of Naples.
    The names and nationalities of the two dead migrants, who were both men, were not released.
    The Italian Navy's search and rescue
    "Mare Nostrum" (Our Sea) mission of Mediterranean patrols began in October 2013, after 366 people drowned when their boat capsized just a mile from the Italian coast.
    That tragedy focused international attention on the desperate risks taken by many migrants who leave the shores of north Africa, mainly from chaotic Libya, in unseaworthy boats and die in their hundreds.
    Over the past year, most of the migrants have been refugees fleeing Syria's civil war and Eritrea's harsh military service, according to the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR).
    The UNHCR estimated last month that around 800 boat migrants had died in the Mediterranean so far this year, compared with 600 in the whole of 2013 and 500 in 2012.
    However, the bodies of many victims are never found, making calculations of the death toll extremely approximate and probably under-estimated.
    The interior ministry said on Friday the total of all boat migrants who had arrived in Italy this year now stood at 101,480, surpassing the previous record of around 62,000 for all of 2011, year of the "Arab Spring" uprisings.
  • Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2014. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register