E-MAIL THIS LINK
To: 

Italian coastguard rescues 801 boat migrants, many from Syria
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Italia's coastguard said it helped rescue 801 migrants colonists from two boats off western Sicily on Thursday, including many Syrians, amid signs that refugees from the Middle East are increasingly shunning the Greek route into Europe.

More than a million migrants colonists, many from Syria, have entered Europe via The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
 and Greece in the past year but the number has fallen sharply since March, when Ankara agreed with the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
 to take back refugees landing on the Greek islands.

The United Nations
...where theory meets practice and practice loses...
 refugee agency (UNHCR) said the two boats aided on Thursday, which were also carrying some Iraqis, represented the largest such attempted mass migration from Syria and Iraq to Italia for at least a year.

An Italian coastguard statement said 515 people had been plucked from one boat and a further 286 people rescued in another operation involving a Finnish naval vessel.

A coastguard front man said most of those taken to safety in the first operation were Syrian, while he was unable to give the nationalities of those saved from the second boat.

Another coastguard front man had previously said the second operation had rescued around 380 people.

UNHCR spokeswoman Carlotta Sami said the Syrians and Iraqis had set sail from Egypt rather than Libya, the launchpad for most migrants colonists heading to Italia.

The UNHCR says more migrants colonists looking to reach Europe arrived in Italia in April than in Greece - 9,149 against 3,650 - the first time that had happened since May 2015.

As of May 10, 31,250 migrants colonists had reached Italia by boat this year, a 14 percent decline from the same period last year, according to the Interior Ministry.

The vast majority came from African countries, led by Nigeria, Gambia
... The Gambia is actually surrounded by Senegal on all sides but its west coast. It has a population of about 1.7 million. The difference between the two is that in colonial days Senegal was ruled by La Belle France and The Gambia (so-called because there's only one of it, unlike Guinea, of which there are the Republic of Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, New Guinea, the English coin in circulation between 1663 and 1813, and Guyana, which sounds like it should be another one) was ruled by Britain...
, Somalia and the African Coast.

In addition to the European Union's repatriation deal with Turkey, Balkan nations, Hungary and Austria have tightened border controls in an attempt to deter the migrants colonists entering from Greece. Most who take the Balkan route head to Germany.

Posted by: Fred 2016-05-13
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=455769