Migrants shipped back to Libya
2009-05-07 20:09
Rome - Italy shipped more than 200 migrants who had been rescued in the Mediterranean Sea back to Libya on Thursday as Rome pressed its crackdown on illegal immigration.
Customs and border police Commander Francesco Maugeri, based on the tiny Sicilian island of Lampedusa, said 227 migrants were sent back to Tripoli aboard two coast guard boats and a third border police boat.
"Some of the migrants were suffering symptoms probably caused by exhaustion and cold" but none had serious health problems, he said.
Italy contends the clandestine migrants had set out in smugglers' boats from Libyan shores.
Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, speaking on private Italian Canale 5 TV, praised Libya's acceptance of the migrants as a possible "turning point" in the crackdown on illegal immigration.
Only Wednesday, Italy and the island nation of Malta had appeared headed for their latest standoff over which nation should take in the migrants.
Authorities in Sicily received two calls early on Wednesday from satellite phones aboard the smugglers' vessels but relayed the pleas for help to Malta. The Maltese then contacted the closest ship, an Italian tanker.
Last month, a similar scenario triggered a four-day standoff between the two countries after a Turkish ship rescued 140 migrants off Lampedusa.
Malta had insisted the ship take those migrants to Lampedusa because that was the nearest port, while Italy contended Malta should accept them because the ship was in Malta's search and rescue area.
Eventually Italy took the migrants in for humanitarian reasons.
- AP