650 boat migrants reach Italy

Despite the extremely dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean Sea, many people continue to find their way to Europe: about 650 boat migrants reached the Italian coast alone on a fishing trawler on Monday night.

The approximately 30-meter-long and overloaded boat arrived in the southern town of Roccella Ionica, Ansa news agency reported Monday. The people had left Libya and were on the road for five days.

The prisoners are exclusive Men from Syria, Pakistan, Egypt and Bangladesh, as Ansa further reported. Neither the Coast Guard nor civilian sea rescue workers were involved in the arrival – they reached the town in the Calabria region autonomously. Thousands of people arrived in Italy this weekend. Dozens of others died trying or went missing because their boats capsized.

Meanwhile, the private aid agency Doctors Without Borders landed 190 Mediterranean migrants in Bari, Apulia. As announced by the organization, the “Geo Barents” arrived late Sunday afternoon at the port on the Adriatic coast previously assigned by the Italian authorities. The ship had picked up the people on Friday from an unseaworthy wooden boat. Among them were several unaccompanied minors.

Many people try to get to Lampedusa, Malta, Sicily or the Italian mainland by boat from Tunisia and Libya via the Central Mediterranean. The arrivals have been discussed in the Mediterranean country for some time. The media is already talking about a “migrant boom” or even an “exodus”.

(yam/sda/dpa)