FILE-MIGRANTS LAMPEDUSA ANNIVERSARY First anniversary of Lampedusa migrant boat disaster nears

Record ID: 348809

  • Title: FILE-MIGRANTS LAMPEDUSA ANNIVERSARY First anniversary of Lampedusa migrant boat disaster nears
  • Date: 1st October 2014
  • Summary: LAMPEDUSA, ITALY (FILE - OCTOBER 7, 2013) (REUTERS) "GATE OF EUROPE" MONUMENT DEDICATED TO MIGRANTS WHO HAVE LOST THEIR LIVES IN THE MEDITERRANEAN ON HILLTOP / COAST GUARD VESSEL AT SPOT WHERE MIGRANT BOAT SANK COAST GUARD VESSELS AT SPOT WHERE MIGRANT BOAT SANK
  • Embargoed: 16th October 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Italy
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA6L9XC5OOGHPZ9IDJARDXA3MMK
  • Story Text: Friday (October 3) marks the first anniversary of a migrant boat shipwreck off Italy's southern Lampedusa island in which 366 men, women and children, mostly Eritreans, drowned within sight of shore.
    According to survivors, some 500 migrants were crammed onto the small fishing vessel that had departed from Libya and sank less than a kilometre from Lampedusa.
    Divers spent days searching rough waters off the coast of Sicily for the bodies of the hundreds of migrants whose dream of escaping violence, poverty and oppression for a new life in Europe ended when their boat caught fire and sank.
    Just a week later, 34 more migrants drowned when their boat capsized at sea some 60 miles south of Lampedusa.
    The small island, which lies southwest of Sicily and just 70 miles (113 km) from the coast of Tunisia, has been a stepping stone for migrants seeking a better life in Europe for two decades.
    The deaths set off a fierce political debate in Italy over tough rules intended to combat clandestine immigration which made it an offence to offer help to illegal migrant boats.
    Following the October shipwreck, in order to try to prevent further tragedies, Italy launched the "Mare Nostrum" ("Our Sea") search and rescue mission in the Mediterranean.
    The mission costs around nine million euros ($11.92 million) a month and has many political opponents in Italy, which slipped back into recession in the second quarter of 2014 after years of stagnation. However, authorities say is has saved tens of thousands of lives. It involves Italian vessels patrolling the Mediterranean looking for boats in distress and bringing the migrants to shore.
    Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said in an interview with the Corriere della Sera newspaper in August that Mare Nostrum was intended to be a temporary measure which could not continue until the second anniversary of the October shipwreck.
    At the frontier between Europe and Africa, Italy has long attracted sea-borne migrants, but the number of arrivals this year is already above a previous record of just over 60,000 for all of 2011, when the Arab Spring uprisings fuelled migration.
    Droves of people, many fleeing war in Syria and military conscription in Eritrea, have attempted the perilous passage this year, pushing the number of seaborne arrivals in Italy to a record of more than 100,000.
    The rickety boats departing North Africa, where a breakdown of order in Libya has been exploited by traffickers, often run into difficulty despite calmer summer seas.
    Nearly 2,000 people fleeing Africa and the Middle East have drowned in the Mediterranean this year, most of them between June and August, the United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, said on August 28.
    A total of 124,380 boat people landed in Europe between January and August this year, the agency said.
    According to the August figures, Italy hosted over 108,000 boat people, far more than any country in the region. Greece had nearly 15,000 either rescued or picked up on its sea borders, while some 1,800 were in Spain and over 300 in Malta.
    The figures show a strong surge in migrant traffic - and deaths - over the last three years. While some 1,500 died in 2011, in 2012 that number fell to 500, and last year it was just over 600 - all three for the full 12 months.
    Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has called on the European Union to take responsibility for rescuing migrants by investing in border control agency Frontex, and on the United Nations to intervene in Libya to manage the flow of refugees.
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