Migrants must not die at sea, Berlusconi told Author
by John Hooper
The Guardian
08/23/2004

The head of Italy's coastguard yesterday stepped into a growing row over illegal immigration with a sharp reminder to Silvio Berlusconi's rightwing government of its humanitarian responsibilities. Admiral Eugenio Sicurezza, whose officers are in the front line of attempts to stem clandestine migration, told a newspaper interviewer: 'The fact is that we have to take responsibility for the lives of these poor wretches. Full stop. There is no question that is the way it is. No mariner would ever let people die at sea.' The humanitarian issue has become central to the debate because of a change in tactics by the migrant-traffickers. Instead of running their human cargoes into Italian territorial waters for clandestine, often nocturnal, landings, they have taken to casting them loose in the Mediterranean aboard boats which Admiral Sicurezza said were 'at the limits of seaworthiness'. His remarks appeared to be a riposte to renewed protests from the Northern League, one of the four main parties in Mr Berlusconi's coalition. On Sunday Roberto Calderoli, a league minister, called for the 'use of force against anyone trying - by force - to enter Italian territory illegally'. The highly charged debate acquired new emotional overtones yesterday after it was learnt that a Senegalese immigrant had died rescuing an Italian who got into difficulties while swimming off a beach on the Tuscan coast. The authorities in the province of Livorno, where 27-year-old Cheikh Sarr lost his life said they were trying to trace his widow in Senegal to provide her with a pension. One of the proudest claims of Mr Berlusconi's government is to have cut drastically the rate of illegal immigration. But in recent weeks it has been embarrassed by the landing on Italy's southern islands of boatloads of migrants whose vessels were found drifting in the Mediterranean. At the weekend the government claimed the rate of illegal entries into southern Italy had been almost halved in the previous 12 months. But Mr Calderoli said the figures did not take account of a sharp rise in the number of people rescued at sea, and denounced what he called 'the failure of controls on [Italy's] seas and coasts'. In an interview with the daily Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, Admiral Sicurezza acknowledged that rescues had increased. But he added: 'As a civilised nation, we cannot but take responsibility for the safety of these people. It is a juridical obligation. But it is also, and above all, a moral one ... when there are people in difficulty at sea there is only one rule - save them.' Most of the recent arrivals have embarked in Libya. Earlier this month almost 30 Africans died of cold and dehydration before a further 75 barely conscious survivors were saved by a merchant ship. Italy and Germany afterwards made a joint appeal for immigration 'gateways' to be established outside Europe to help regulate the flow of would-be immigrants.