400 Migrants Die in Shipwreck Off Libya, Survivors Say

[gatagato]

About 400 migrants died in an attempt to reach Italy from Libya when their boat capsized, survivors said on Tuesday, the latest tragedy in the Mediterranean where the death toll from shipwrecks has surged this year.


Migrants arrive at the Sicilian Porto Empedocle harbor, Italy, Monday, April 13, 2015.

The boat, carrying about 550 migrants in total, flipped about 24 hours after leaving the Libyan coast, according to some of the 150 survivors who were rescued and brought to a southern Italian port on Tuesday morning, Save the Children reported.

Before this incident there had already been more than 500 deaths of migrants crossing the Mediterranean from Africa this year, up sharply from 47 in the same period of 2014, said the Geneva-based International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

The survivors of the latest shipwreck were mostly sub-Saharan Africans, but no further details were available, a Save the Children spokesman told Reuters. It was not clear exactly when the boat had capsized.

The number of boats carrying migrants aiming to reach the EU from Africa has picked up in recent weeks as fine spring weather makes the passage safer. In February, more than 300 drowned when attempting the crossing in cold weather and rough seas.

Save the Children, the IOM and other humanitarian organisations have called for the European Union to bolster its sea rescue operations before the migrant flows soar as they usually do in the summer months.

On Monday, 2,851 migrants were saved in rescue operations in the Mediterranean, the Italian coastguard said, adding to at least nine who died and 5,629 who were saved over the weekend.

Italy, which handled the largest number of migrant arrivals in the EU, has become increasingly alarmed about the breakdown of law and order in Libya, which has greatly exacerbated the task of tackling the migrant flows. Libya is home to two rival governments, loosely aligned militia forces and a growing militant Islamist movement.

Separately, the EU border control agency Frontex said on Tuesday that migrant traffickers had fired shots to prevent their wooden boat being confiscated after rescuers saved the 250 people it was carrying off the coast of Libya.

After the migrants had been transferred, a speedboat approached and its crew fired several shots into the air before the assailants sped away with the empty migrant boat, Frontex said.

Frontex said the episode marked the second time this year that armed smugglers had taken back a vessel used to transport migrants following a rescue in the central Mediterranean.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/0...0N51XN20150414
http://www.todayszaman.com/anasayfa_...ya_378006.html

[Oswald2001]

They should be limited to going to their own mosques in their own countries for relief.

The mosques are responsible for all the trouble and should be the only ones shouldering the burden of fixing the problems that they continue to cause.

Also, the 'immigrants' bring their slimy moo slum terrorist evil madness to the EU and cause more problems.

Let the moo slums stay in their moo slum paradises.

They are worse than a combination of Super AIDS/Ebola and should be strictly quarantined.

[icheerthebull]

Must have been hard for the rescuers. Malta and Italy are having a tough time of it, not in terms of twats using it as a excuse to blame the jews or muslims but in real life terms. I bet the man or women pulling a childs body into the boat didnt really give a fuck about le pen, the EU or what fox news said.

Navy and curise ships have ignored international rules when it comes to this issue in the past.

There are several nations where breaking out of prison is not against the law, any damage caused you can be convicted of but the desire is recognised as being natural. Just like the desire of a mother and father to make a better life for their children. Would you? would you cling to a plastic shack of a boat after a 5 day walk? or even after a heavy night? regardless countless men and women are out there saving thousands. Because thats what they do.

This is not a issue that can be ignored but its certainly not a issue that can be debated with the kind of retoric that would make ian stuart donaldson blush.

The 400 hundred dead will be joined by more soon but you have to give respect to the people who work these areas. Related news this week -

Italy rescues nearly 6,000 migrants in a single weekend

Italy’s coastguard and navy have rescued nearly 6,000 migrants since Friday, as warm weather and improving sea conditions prompted an even higher number of boats than usual to set off from north Africa.

Rescue operations are still under way and at least nine migrants have died after their boat capsized about 80 miles off the coast of Libya, according to reports on Monday morning. About 144 people were saved in that operation.

Concerns have already been raised about the logic and morality of Europe’s decision to cut back maritime rescue operations in the Mediterranean last autumn. The EU is expected to announce a review of its policies in early May.

The new arrivals bring the total number of migrants who have entered Italy to more than 15,000 since the start of the year, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which tracks the figures closely.

It was the second weekend in a row in which huge numbers of migrants were rescued crossing the Sicilian channel.

The majority of the operations this month have been performed by the Italian coastguard and navy and some commercial ships in international waters, rather than the European-backed Triton mission that patrols waters within 30 miles of the Italian coast.

Triton replaced a far more ambitious programme conducted by Italy, the Mare Nostrum mission, at the end of last year. Mare Nostrum was a one-year programme that cost Italy about €9m a month, compared with Triton’s budget of €2.9m, and carried out search and rescue missions over a 27,000 square-mile area.

Refugee advocate groups have pointed to this year’s migrant death toll of about 480, compared with 50 at the same time last year, as a sign of Triton’s inability to cope with the scale of the migration crisis.

Amnesty International has said that it hopes any review of Europe’s plan to handle the migration crisis would involve all of the EU taking a greater stake in the rescue operations, rather than just Italy.

Commercial vessels have provided significant support to the Italian coastguard, which sometimes calls on private ships to aid in rescue operations if they are closer to boats in distress. Last year, commercial ships rescued about 40,000 migrants.

“It is very delicate. It can be dangerous,” said Flavio Di Giacomo from IOM in Italy. “Usually they are in contact with Italian coastguard in Rome and they are followed step-by-step. Of course it is quite complicated because these commercial ships often have big open spaces [onboard] that are not designed to provide support to migrants.”

IOM staff who met some of the migrants who arrived in Italy over the weekend said they had been waiting to leave Libya for more than a month in “connection houses”, where it said smugglers subjected them to violence and abuse.

Survivors of the journey have been brought to the island of Lampedusa, Augusta, Messina, Porto Empedocle and Calabria.

Most of the migrants are from Libya and sub-Saharan Africa, including Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia.

The IOM reported that rescuers found a body on one boat that was recovered over the weekend. The victim is thought to have suffocated on the boat’s fumes, and an investigation is under way.

Separately on Monday, Tunisia’s coastguard and navy rescued 178 migrants from two boats that broke down as they headed from Libya to Italy. The Red Crescent said the migrants – 94 on one boat and 84 on the other – sent out a distress call from off the coast of south-east Tunisia as they headed for Lampedusa.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...single-weekend

[winvens]

Another overloaded non-seaworthy boat carrying desperate folk sinking in the Mediterranean. More proof we're inept at taking of ourselves as a whole.

[rob666]

But, but I thought that Libya was paradise now that we've gotten rid of a Ghadaffi

[rob666]

Originally Posted by Oswald2001

They should be limited to going to their own mosques in their own countries for relief.

The mosques are responsible for all the trouble and should be the only ones shouldering the burden of fixing the problems that they continue to cause.

Also, the 'immigrants' bring their slimy moo slum terrorist evil madness to the EU and cause more problems.

Let the moo slums stay in their moo slum paradises.

They are worse than a combination of Super AIDS/Ebola and should be strictly quarantined.

Right, because poor people and nations with political issues are only possible when there are mosques nearby

[kellyhound]

only one who benefits from this are the traffickers from africa and the middle-east who put them on boats and the only thing the eu does is sending Italy some extra money to "help".

[spudigitti]

[dwizzy22]

i can never understand why people have such a hostile opinion towards immigrants, sure they cost billions on everyone's economy, sure they bring sociability issues.
i maintain the opinion that they did not deserve that fate they don't deserve to be beaten, excluded or anything that the select few people on here believe.
this planet is everyone's, not mine not yours
its not fair to rag on other humans longing security and stability for their lives until you live what they live.
as i said its my opinion.

[Oswald2001]

The are coming to tear Europe down to moo slum levels of Dark Ages poverty, ignorance and despair.

When they get done with Europe, they'll have torn it down into another collection of failed moo slum states like Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, etc.