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THE ITALIAN NAVY and coastguard said today they rescued overnight over 100 Syrian refugees after their boat got into difficulties off the coast of Sicily.
The boat, which had launched distress signals while more than 300 miles south of Sicily, was located in the night by two naval vessels, said officials, adding that life jackets were then given to all passengers.
Weather conditions had initially made it difficult to transfer the refugees from their ailing craft. But on Saturday morning the coastguard was able to recover 105 passengers, including six women and 25 children, all of them Syrians.
They were taken to Syracuse, in the southeast of Sicily’s main island.
Their rescue comes just days after another group of 120 refugees, mainly Syrians, were saved on December 2 after their ship was found adrift off of Calabria, on Italy’s southern mainland.
More than 400 immigrants died in early October in two shipwrecks, one near the Italian island of Lampedusa, the other near the coast of Malta.
Shortly after the tragedy, the Italian government launched a major operation called “Mare Nostrum”, mobilising warships, amphibious vessels and aircraft to prevent further incidents.
Also on Saturday, Spanish authorities announced they had saved some 46 refugees. The group had been plucked from four boats off of Spain’s southeastern coast.
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Sicily must rescue these poor people, feed them clothe them and send the bill to Obama, Cameron, Hollande and Merkel who have caused the strife in Syria.
How?
A better destination for the bill would be Saudi Arabia,the origin of the toxic Wahabbi version of Islam that the Jihadists who are causing mayhem in Syria subscribe to.
I have an inkling that most of these refugees are Sunni Muslims.The Sunni Muslim mega-rich Gulf States should be taking the vast majority of these people,with whom they share cultural,religious and linguistic ties.
European liberal culture is alien to these people and as we have seen already, they refuse to drop the primitive practices that made their countries hell holes in the first place.
Well said al shamen, Saudi Arabia deported tens of thousands of African immigrants recently
but they expect Europe to take in Arab Muslims all the time
Any idiot who hasn’t been brainwashed by RTE will see this so called “Araboo Spring” is a western concoction to destabilize the Middle-East for their resources. Syria is a sovereign nation ,but that won’t stop the West turning it into a $h!+hole so that Obama’s friends in the oil business can profit from it
I agree the west should stay out of Syria the Islamist that want to topple assad are just as bad and in some cases worse, but this has nothing to do with oil, the US has more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia and Iran, the true protesters behind the Arab spring at first were the more liberal arab’s but the Muslim brotherhood and other Islamist groups hijacked it from them
It’s already a sh!thole
Exactly how did the west manage to ‘concoct’ the arab spring? Lets talk practicalities here.
Tristan, have you not heard about the boom in oil production in the USA?
Btw, where do you get your oil from when you fill up your car?
Or do you ride a bike?
have your say