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2021-05-02 Europe
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Over 800 migrants rescued at sea head to Italy
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 [AlAhram] The maritime rescue group SOS Mediterranee said a ship it operates, Ocean Viking, pulled the migrants colonists to safety four days ago from two rubber dinghies
Two Italian ports faced an influx of hundreds of migrants colonists on Saturday, as a charity ship sailed toward a Sicilian port with 236 people rescued in the Mediterranean from traffickers' boats, while Italian coasties and border police brought 532 others to a tiny island.
The maritime rescue group SOS Mediterranee said a ship it operates, Ocean Viking, pulled the migrants colonists to safety four days ago from two rubber dinghies. Upon instructions from Italian authorities, the Ocean Viking was sailing to Augusta, Sicily, with its passengers, who it said included 119 unaccompanied minors.
SOS Mediterranee said some passengers told rescuers they were beaten by smugglers based in Libya and forced to embark on the unseaworthy dinghies despite high waves.
On Italia's southern island of Lampedusa, which is closer to North Africa than to the Italian mainland, Mayor Salvatore Martello said migrants colonists from four boats that needed rescue stepped ashore overnight. They were brought to safety by Italian coasties and customs police boats.
Separately, an Italian navy vessel rescued 49 migrants colonists, Italian state TV reported.
Still in the central Mediterranean Sea on Saturday was another charity boat, Sea-Watch 4, which with 308 people aboard who had been rescued in four separate operations from trafficker-launched vessels, Sea-Watch said in a statement. The first rescue, of 44 people, took place on Thursday, it said.
Sea-Watch 4 has requested a port to disembark the migrants colonists from both Italia and Malta.
``The fact that we, as a civil rescue ship, saved so many people from distress at sea in such a short time again demonstrates the fundamental rescue gap European states have created at the world's most dangerous maritime border,'' said Hannah Wallace Bowman, the head of mission for Sea-Watch 4.
Warmer weather in the spring often increases the number of vessels launched toward Europa
 ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
by Libya-based migrant traffickers.
Last month, SOS Mediterranean personnel and a merchant ship spotted several bodies from a shipwrecked dinghy, believed to have been carrying 130 migrants colonists. People on the boat had appealed for help in the waters off Libya, but no coasties vessels from Libya, Italia or Malta came to their aid, the group said. No survivors were found.
Humanitarian groups have been urging European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
nations to resume the deployment of military vessels on rescue patrols in the Mediterranean. After hundreds of thousands of rescued migrants colonists, many of them ineligible for asylum, were brought to Italia by ships from the coasties, navy, border police and other nations, large-scale rescue operations in the sea north of Libya were ended.
Italia has been equipping and training the Libyan coasties to rescue migrants colonists in their search-and-rescue area and to discourage traffickers.
Human rights groups and U.N. agencies have denounced inhumane treatment at Libyan detention centers, where migrants colonists rescued or intercepted by the Libyan coasties are taken. They say migrants colonists endure beatings, rapes and insufficient rations.
On Friday, the United Nation's child welfare agency said a total of 125 Europe-bound children were among those intercepted at sea earlier in the week by Libyan authorities off the Mediterranean coast. UNICEF said most of those rescued were sent to overcrowded detention centers with no or limited access to water.
``Europe can no longer remain passive in the face of recurring shipwrecks while consciously upholding a system of unspeakable abuse by supporting forced returns to Libya,'' SOS Mediterranee said.
The risk migrants colonists run of perishing at sea is high. UNICEF says at least 350 people, including children and women, have drowned or gone missing in the Mediterranean since January.
According to the Italian Interior Ministry, as of Friday, 9,000 migrants colonists had reached Italia by sea this year.
Both Italian and Maltese governments in recent years have claimed that private charity boats effectively facilitate trafficking by rescuing migrants colonists at sea. At times, rescue vessels, including commercials ones, have been kept waiting for long stretches before a safe port was assigned.
Over 100 migrants saved in the Mediterranean
[DW] Over 100 migrants colonists were saved in the Mediterranean on Friday due to the efforts of German NGO Sea-Watch and the Italian navy. The migrants colonists were adrift at sea in rubber boats.
The Sea-Watch 4 rescue ship took in 77 people including 11 women and a baby, according to the NGO's official Twitter account. The ship recently departed the Spanish port of Burriana after it was detained by Italian authorities for months.
The Sea-Watch 4 rescued another 40 people on Thursday, with the vessel now having 121 migrants colonists on board.
In a separate mission, the Italian navy said Friday it rescued nearly 50 people from a dingy that was floating north of Tripoli
...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn...
, Libya.
On Sunday, the Italian coasties said it had also rescued over 100 migrants colonists on a fishing boat.
WHY ARE MIGRANTS COLONISTS TRAVELING ACROSS THE MEDITERRANEAN?
According to the UN, some 480 people have perished in the central Mediterranean so far this year. The migrants colonists are fleeing instability in Libya and other African countries, and also seeking better economic opportunities in Europe.
UN children's agency UNICEF said Friday that children and unaccompanied minors frequently attempt the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean. The agency said there are 65,000 underage migrants colonists living in Libya, who are frequently threatened with abuse and exploitation by traffickers and other nefarious actors. 
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Posted by trailing wife 2021-05-02 00:00||
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