#News: Eighteen more migrants die off the coast of #Italy The Italian coast guard confirmed on Sunday that eighteen people were found dead on an inflatable dinghy that was floating south of the Italian island of Lampedusa. It said 73 others were rescued. This brought the number of rescued over the weekend to more than 3,500 people since Friday in the area between Sicily and the Libyan and Tunisian coasts. The rescue was carried out under Operation Mare Nostrum (Our Sea), a large-scale Italian naval operation that aims to detect these illegal crossings and assist the people on board. By mid-August this year, the number of migrants arriving in Italy surpassed 100,000, according to the UNHCR. This compares to 60,000 or so in 2011. Most of those making the crossing are Eritrea, Somalia and Syria or Libya. Italy has called on other members of the EU to share in the costs of Operation Mare Nostrum which costs 12 million Euros a month. Many of the vessels taking people across to Italy are over-crowded and unsafe and thousands have died. In one of the worst disasters, nearly 400 migrants, almost all Eritreans died when a boat sank off Lampedusa in October last yearmfa.gov.et/news/more.php?newsid=3421
Posted on: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 16:36:41 +0000
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