Italy suffers rush of smuggled migrants

Sophie Arie in Rome and Alan Travis
Saturday October 2, 2004

The Guardian

More than 800 illegal immigrants have landed on the southernmost shores of Italy in 24 hours, suggesting that people smugglers in Libya are organising a last-minute rush before Europe and Libya prepare to seal off the Libyan coastline.

The exhausted immigrants, mostly men, arrived in a few large and overloaded vessels on Thursday and yesterday morning, overwhelming the small island of Lampedusa, south of Sicily.

The influx came as EU ministers clashed over a proposal to push fortress Europe's borders south, setting up asylum processing camps in north Africa, as Britain had proposed 15 months ago.

French ministers, however, were critical of the idea, which was proposed by the German interior minister, Otto Schilly, as an attempt to deal with the toll of more than 5,000 migrants who have died trying to cross the Mediterranean to enter Europe illegally so far this year.

"We are not taking part in this plan," the French interior minister, Dominique de Villepin, said. "It will be very destabilising for these countries."

On Friday, Italy flew hundreds of the newly arrived migrants back to Africa to relieve the facilities on Lampedusa, Italy's southernmost outpost and a first port of call for rickety ships crossing the Mediterranean from Libya and Tunisia.

Most of those being sent back across the Mediterranean are Palestinian, Moroccan, Sudanese and Pakistani men who arrived in relatively good health, the police said.

Germany revived the north African immigrant processing centre plan, with strong Italian backing, when scores of boats loaded with immigrants began washing up on Italy's southern coasts this summer.

At the same time, Italy increased calls on the European Union to lift its economic embargo on Libya so that the country could buy the equipment it needs to patrol its coastline properly.

Britain is believed to support the proposal as long as it does not undermine the right of individuals who arrive in Britain or other EU countries to claim asylum. The Home Office minister, Caroline Flint, yesterday highlighted an agreement with the Lebanon under which 145 migrants were detained in that country and returned home at a cost of £38,000.

It is believed bilateral agreements of this kind with countries outside the EU will form the first phase of a common European asylum policy.