Boats that set out from Libya over a week ago have disappeared, says UN official
More than 400 African migrants seeking to travel to Italy on two vessels are feared drowned after going missing days ago in the Mediterranean, a UN official hassaid.
As Italy began the evacuation from Lampedusa of the 3,000 Tunisians who have reached the island since the collapse of the Tunisian government in January, another 362 migrants arrived in leaking vessels by mid-Sunday.
But two boats that reportedly set out from Libya on 22 and 25 March, one carrying 335 Eritreans and the other 68 Eritreans and Ethiopians, have disappeared.
"We are urging the coastguard to carry on searching since even after 20 days at sea, some people can survive," said Laura Boldrini, a UN spokeswoman.
The head of an asylum seekers' organisation said he had last spoken to migrants on board the smaller boat, an inflatable, by satellite phone on 26 March before the line went dead.
"I have meanwhile had no contact with the larger boat, but family members of those on board have called us from Canada, Sweden and Switzerland to tell us they left," said Father Mose Zerai.
The number reportedly on board the inflatable matches the 68 corpses pulled out of the Mediterranean last week and taken to Tripoli, according to Catholic church workers in the Libyan capital. But Zerai said he suspected the bodies, which were found by fishermen, were victims of a different sinking.
"The inflatable with 68 on board was already 60 miles from the Libyan coast when I spoke to them and that seems too far out for Libyan fishermen to be operating," he said.
After a day's delay due to rough seas, three large passenger ferries docked at Lampedusa on Sunday to take 3,000 Tunisian migrants to makeshift camps on the Italian mainland after the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, promised on Friday to solve the growing humanitarian crisis on the island.
A caravan at the port was set on fire on Saturday during a demonstration by Tunisians fearing they would be repatriated. Boarding one ferry on Sunday, migrants were handed a towel, soap and deodorant wipes.
Berlusconi said that only 2,500 migrants, part of what he has called a "human tsunami" that has hit Italy, would be left on the island by Sunday evening.
The row over what to do with the 22,000 North Africans, mainly Tunisians, who have landed in Italy this year has now drawn in Italy, France, Tunisia and the EU. Hundreds of migrants have been making for the French border, including 250 who fled on Saturday from a camp at Manduria in Puglia, despite patrols by mounted police, after breaking down a fence while shouting "freedom, freedom".
French police have been rounding up 40 Tunisians a day and returning them across the border into Italy, drawing criticism from the EU as well as the Italian government, which has claimed that once in Europe, the Tunisians are free to circulate. Italy has hinted the migrants could be given temporary documents to help them get past the French border and off Italian soil.
Berlusconi and the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, discussed joint solutions on Sunday, although plans for mass deportations have run aground due to the refusal of the Tunisian government to take back the migrants.
Berlusconi, under pressure from his all-powerful ally, the Northern League, to expel the migrants, will visit Tunisia on Monday. He is likely to be offering an aid package as an incentive, after a similar mission by two Italian ministers failed to produce results.
But he suggested that Italy could absorb many of the migrants, telling a political rally on Sunday that if Italy's 9,000 local councils each found a job for one Tunisian the problem of the mass landings would be half solved.
"We must remember we were once a country of migrants," Berlusconi said. "We must show understanding and hospitality, because this is a civilised and Catholic country."
(Source: The Guardian)
Comments
I lost a sister couple years ago and it feels like yesterday. I am heart broken. Can you imagine what they felt at that moment? My Condelences to all the families, parents, brothers, sisters, and Eritrean people in all.
IF YOU GO TO ERITREAN FESTIVAL, SHAME ON YOU! JUST FEEL THAT YOU ARE DANCING ON OUR BROTHERS, SISTERS, BABIES, DAD'S, MOM'S, ERITREANS GRAVE! Please pray for the families! Try to help them than ignore it!
For those of you who are planning to celebrate or go to Eritrean Festival SHAME ON YOU! THIS IS A SAD DAY AND IF YOU DID; DONT FORGET YOU ARE DANCING ON THIER GRAVE.
God Give all of us your blessing and make us strong on this trying time.
What do you think of people, who watch with sadness, and shed a few tears, but have drained of any emotions for their fellow people perishing in some nameless boats in the Mediterranean Sea? I will leave Gabriel to address this malady, but I think we are in deep shit.
Also would like to thanks to those who rescued but Also would be a great shame to those allied nations who took their nationals out of war and left those defensless refugees to the desperate measure. The question we should ask as well what has happened and how did some of them has bullet wounds as it reported in some of the media.
There is no one source of all the "evils" that Erritra(ns) are facing. Stop blaming others without any evidence. It serves no purpose aiding the victims of the Mediterranean Sea. Yes we have many problems that need to be addressed in ER and there are things/people tha push/entice them out of ER, but the dangers ER emigrants face after they cross ER borders are not caused by Petros or YAY. Let the emigrants, survivors, families of victims, and "refugee helpers" speak out and tell us what they know. Then, we'll know what/who to blame, and seek solutions. Many questions are remain unanswered, Regardless, I feel deep sorrow about the various incidents and hardship ER emigrants have to endure.
Thank you for saving me from embarrasment. I was not sure of my memory, and thought I dreamt it up. After all, I also suffer like every one of us from what Gabriel termed a "fragmented memory." Unlike the typical Asmarino, who loves to count 1-100 in Italian, you are well anchored in the traditions of our villages. Berhan r'ie.
They were the decimos (the tenth battalion) on their way to Rome to exhibit themselves as loyal Italian subjects from the new colony, called Eritrea. The songs goes like this
izom decimo izom qoluou
ab qelay koynom zxwou
እዞም ደሺሞ እዞም ቆሉዑ
ኣብ ቀላይ ኮይኖም ዝጽውዑ
Few survived
4/06/2011 04:02 PM GMT (Top Story)
A boat carrying about 200 Eritrean and Somali refugees from Libya capsized early Wednesday in the Mediterranean Sea about 40 miles south of the island of Lampedusa. Only 48 people have been rescued from the water. Officials say about 15 people died and around 130 others remain missing and are feared dead.
High winds, rough water and poor visibility hampered rescue operations, which were being lead by Maltese authorities and the Italian Coast Guard. "We fear that many people may have died," Lampedusa rescue official said.
Lampedua has seen a large influx of migrants this year due to widespread unrest in northern Africa.
All our youth who are leaving Eritrea , they are well aware of the risks they are taking , which is DEATH . That shows you the extremely sever conditions they are subjected under the brutal regime of Asmara , for them to take the risk of life and death . So "WE " meaning you , myself and others should work hard to remove the root cause of this delima, which is the J. Stalin of Asmara, right ?
Honestly speaking, I am still hoping that they will make it to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea somewhere. The sattelite phone's battery could have been dead, if it was not recharged. Like everybody else I fear that they might be dead, but I still pray to God that they miraclously survive their ordeal. I don't want to hear their demise and they are not confirmed dead. I prefer to treat them as people who knew nothing of what was to come, tried to follow their instincts, and they are alive until confirmed dead and silent.
All in their youth
All with families who named them
All I am sure wrote their last letter, made their last call
Named their boat and destination
Further away, as far as possible, from their country of origin...
Eritrea!
who is WE ??? If you are talking from your stand point of view that you are part of the WE group of hegdefite then be specific , otherwise this is a real crises that is causd by the Asmara regime and i hope to God you are not going to deny that !
Nice poem indeed , and you are right to some extent to mention about the cruel smuglers , may be i am missing it , bu whent you forget to mention the root cause and the reall killer of of these vitctims , as such , your poem becomes an empty bravado and a hallow one at that . THE CRUEL INHUMANE ERITREAN REGIME IS THE REAL REASON . Get with it and get your facts together ( not the distorted facts of hegdef by the way ). ty.
Almost a hundred years ago, and around the same region or was it the Red Sea, hundreds of Askeris destined for Italy's war with Libyan resistance died in a ship wreck. The only difference is while people back then (mostly peasants) keened, and mourned for their countrymen with songs, the public in Eritrea now is dried of any emotions, and zombie like. The recent earthquake in New zealand did not kill that many people, and yet the world shared its grief with them. We are even, it seems, not good for statistics.
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