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| Europe |
| Italy: Record illegal migrant landing in southern Sardinia |
| 2008-08-29 |
| (AKI) - One hundred and thirty-five illegal immigrants , including women and children, landed overnight on the southern coast of Sardinia aboard nine wooden boats. All are reported to be Algerian. The illegal migrants have been intercepted by police and transferred to the island's temporary holding centre in Cagliari. It is the largest single landing of illegal immigrants in Sardinia ever. Italian coastguard on Thursday intercepted a motorised dinghy with 55 migrants on board 10 nautical miles off the southern Sicilian coast. The migrants, who include six women, were transferred to Agrigento. As many as 71 African migrants died in the Mediterranean Sea between Sicily and Malta, according to eight of their companions who were rescued by a fishing vessel late on Wednesday. Most are reported to be Sudanese. The people smugglers' boat set sail from Zuwara on the Libyan coast 10 days ago, but ran out of food and water and lost its engine in rough seas before sinking. Some of those aboard died of exhaustion, hunger and dehydration and others threw themselves overboard, survivors said. The other victims, including a small child and four pregnant women drowned, according to the surviving passengers. Maltese authorities are reportedly combing the area where the boat sank, some 40 nautical miles south of Malta, to search for signs of the missing. "If the numbers of people who lost their lives are confirmed, this would be a tragedy at sea comparable to an air disaster," said spokeswoman for the United Nations refugee agency the UNHCR, Laura Boldrini. A total of 380 people died in the Sicilian Channel from January to June this year, according to medical charity Doctors without Borders, compared with 500 in 2007. |
| Posted by:Fred |