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THE SIX MIGRANTS who drowned off a tourist beach in Sicily were Egyptians after their boat was abandoned at sea by a larger vessel, Italian media has reported.
The six victims who jumped from a fishing boat thinking they had arrived onshore were identified as between 17 and 27 years of age.
Rescue
A boat illegally transporting nearly 100 migrants had hit a sandbar about 15 metres from the shore, and some of them managed to swim to the beach. Others were rescued by the Italian coastguard.
Investigators believe that the boat was transporting more than 100 passengers, mostly Syrians and some Egyptians, of whom 94 were accounted for on Sunday. Three smugglers escaped by jumping into the sea, according to media reports.
The old wooden boat carrying the migrants had been towed by a “larger ship” and abandoned off the coast of Catania in eastern Sicily, according to police.
Immigrants
Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino told local radio Sunday there was “no miracle solution” to the influx of immigrants from war-torn and poverty-stricken countries in the Middle East and Africa, and said Italy was “not the dreams of these immigrants.”
The southern European country was instead “a country of transit,” she added, emphasising the difficulty of preventing such incidents.
“The southern borders of Libya are out of control and harbour Sudanese, Nigerians and many others,” she said.
Syrians travelled through Lebanon and then Egypt, and since the war in Iraq immigrants passed through Turkey and ended up in Greece, Italy and Spain, “the countries suffering the heaviest burden,” she added.
Two Egyptians aged 16 and 17 were also questioned by police, believed to have been responsible for distributing food onboard the vessel, according to prosecutors.
The prosecutor of Catania, Giovanni Salvi, opened an investigation into incitement to illegal immigration and possible multiple homicide on Saturday.
To enter unnoticed to a city the size of Catania, “they were probably transferred at night from a larger vessel or they would have been spotted earlier,” he told the Catholic newspaper L’Avvenire.
This implied the existence of an “organised network,” including possible links with the Sicilian Mafia, he said.
Another vessel carrying 80 Egyptians and Syrians ran into trouble in Calabria, southern Italy today but managed to pull away from a sandbank without any injuries, the fifth boat of migrants in the region in the last two weeks.
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The Pasports should be done away with and it should be free to go to any country you want to go to.Just remember when Britain plundered the world they didn’t have a passport so let’s be fair.
Another nugget from Denise?!
Er, no. That’s just not going to work.
That would be an epic social and economic disaster Denise for all concerned.
I remember hearing passport control being described as fascism. There are some crazy opinions out there.
Strange how many of the people that i’ve met that have views like Denise live in very well to do areas, in houses that their parents own or they inherited.
Easy to push for hair brained ideas when it is others who’ll have to deal with the fall out. Denise’s world would mean a collapse in wages and the ending of workers rights as a never ending pool of cheap labour came in to being. Easy to be for that when it is a problem for others.
I suppose next you’ll want whatever you’re smoking be legalised.
Denise, have you ever posted a comment on the journal that hasn’t generated a coupla hundred red thumbs?
Nice airy fairy idea. But totally naive.
Denise, it’s amazing how you continually maintain the same naive rhetoric despite how consistently unpopular your comments are. Not being mean, but do you not see how poorly received your opinion is? Maybe it’s time to wind it down.
”Just remember when Britain plundered the world they didn’t have a passport so let’s be fair.”
dead on – and they were not the only Europeans to plunder .
This documentary is well worth a look . As for passports – we don’t need them in EU – so if all countries were a bit more fair and equal – did the pilgrim fathers have passports or the whites who plundered Australia – where now the Aborigines are unwanted in their own land .
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2013/08/201387113131914906.html
Jim, you and Denise should get a room.
Btw you contradict yourself, think about it.
”Denise’s world would mean a collapse in wages and the ending of workers rights as a never ending pool of cheap labour came in to being”
it would meant that in the Neo con capitalist society we live in now – there are of course other alternatives- as the Neo con system is designed to divide and conquer – and it works .
Stupidity kills
I think you mean desperation for a better life…
Yeah, that and stupidity
Egyptian problem not the rest of europe’s problem
Badly misses Gavin.
The grammar in that paragraph is terrible lol
I’m not trying to be funny but were they all blind? Surely they could see that they were not at the shore.
They hit a sandbar 15 metres from shore so they thought they could just walk in – I assume a lot of them could not swim – I can only imagine the panic – poor things.
Sure probably would have made their way to this grand little island of ours n claimed welfare so though.
They probably thought they had reached Ireland..
I bet if them poor people came to Ireland with a million euro on their credit cards they would have no problem geting in.So put that in your exaust pipe and drive on.
I don’t think they would be crammed into boats if they had a million Euro.
Ryanair at the very least to somewhere near Milan.
some inhuman comments on here .
this is a terrible tragedy and as Ryanair has been mentioned – it may be worth a look at C4 Dispatches at 8pm tomorrow for a documentary on that Airline .
Very sad
Dylan I must tell you I worked hard for my house and I am still working so don’t be a judge on some one you never met or know.I understand you have been brainwashed but look at the people as human beings like yourself.
Fair play to you.
There is a broad correlation between income and the view that you espoused. More often than not those in favour of no border control, passports etc are upper middle class.
Not going to indulge your bourgeoisie smugness re brainwashing.
You ask not to be judged yet you made a judgement on him. Grow up Denise.
Not so sure about abolishing border controls, but it is a little sad that in 2013 people die in this manner or are experiencing such a harsh reality that this is their only attempt or means of escape. We aren’t really as advanced or civilised as we seem to believe that we are
Denise, have you ever posted a comment on the journal that hasn’t generated a coupla hundred red thumbs?
How do you escape by diving into the sea?
Desperation. Go and give mammy or daddy back their iphone now, good child.
‘Three smugglers escaped by jumping into the sea, according to media reports.’
94 of 100 rescued, but the smugglers evade capture?
37 and using an Android handset.
How can you drown 15 meters from the shore? Literally a stones throw..
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