New wave of migrants hits Italy
2009-05-11 10:32
Rome - Italy's policy of returning boat people picked up off its shores by Italian vessels without processing asylum claims gathered steam on Sunday as another 163 landed on Libyan shores, sources said.
An immigration source said the new group, picked up late on Saturday in the waters off Italy's southwestern island outpost of Lampedusa, north of Libya, were swiftly turned back, with ANSA news agency saying they landed on Sunday morning.
It was the second large-scale return in three days, after 227 clandestine migrants were ferried to Tripoli by the Italian navy on Thursday. The agency said the latest batch included two babies and about 50 women.
Rome's hardline stance has been slammed by human rights and humanitarian organisations, including the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, as well as the Vatican.
But Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Saturday defended the policy, saying it "conforms with European standards, international laws and conventions concerning human rights that we have not violated".
Berlusconi, who also announced that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi will visit Italy soon, said Italy was entitled to hand back Thursday's boat people because they were not intercepted in Italian waters.
There was no information as to how close to Lampedusa Saturday's batch were when they were stopped.
Desperate straits
Tripoli agreed to step up its co-operation in the fight against illegal immigration into the European Union under a friendship accord between Italy and Libya signed in August 2008.
Libya's ambassador to Rome said in an interview with the La Repubblica newspaper on Saturday that joint patrols with Italy targeting illegal immigrants would begin mid-May.
UNHCR spokesperson Laura Boldrini said on Friday that "the migrants were unable to make any demands for asylum because they weren't even received".
European Commission spokesperson Michele Cercone said legal arguments would centre on whether the boat people were picked up in Libyan, international or European waters, and whether the vessel had been in trouble or sent out a call for help.
The Vatican's Osservatore Romano newspaper said Rome's "obligation" was to help those "in desperate straits."
Italy looks set to introduce a new offence of "clandestine immigration", likened by the left-wing opposition to the racial purity laws introduced in Italy in the 1920s by the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini.
Some 36 900 boat people arrived on Italian shores last year, a 75% increase over 2007, according to interior ministry figures.