Illegal immigrants die in bid to reach Italy
More than 70 illegal immigrants found near death in the Mediterranean were rescued yesterday, but several from the group may have died trying to reach Italy, police said.
A cargo ship came across the dehydrated group of Africans in a small boat south of Sicily, and before dawn yesterday towed the vessel into the port of Syracuse, on the southeast of the island.
One of the 74 rescued died upon arrival, and about 16 were rushed to hospital, Syracuse police official Vincenzo Mauro said.
Some of the survivors were being housed in a school gymnasium, while others were being interviewed by police and immigration officials.
Ansa news agency reported the immigrants said they were from Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone, and began their trip from Libya. The news agency did not give a source for the information.
“Probably, at the point of departure there were approximately 100 people,” Mauro said. With little water or food, several died during the trip, he said.
“From what the survivors have told us, some of the illegal immigrants were abandoned in the sea. But we still need to clarify this,” Mauro said.
The immigrants had been packed onto a 45-foot wooden boat, and were picked up by the cargo ship about 115 miles southeast of Syracuse, port official Antonino Figura said.
Each paid smugglers from €750 to €1,500 for the trip to Italy, according to immigrants’ interviews, Mauro said. He declined to give details on their nationalities or point of departure.
Thousands of immigrants attempt the dangerous voyage aboard overcrowded boats to Italy’s long coastline every year in hopes of finding work and gaining residency in Europe.
The Italian government said this latest case demonstrated that the European Union and other nations must join together to battle illegal immigration.
“This umpteenth tragedy at sea dramatically raises the need to govern the migration process through wide-ranging international understandings that simultaneously involve the countries of origin, of transit and of arrival,” Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said in a statement.
