2023-08-13 10:52:00
The fugitives, many from Congo, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal and Mali, said they departed from Gabes, Sfax and Mahdia in Tunisia.
On Saturday, 27 landings with a total of 718 migrants were counted on the island within 24 hours. There are 2,127 migrants in the Lampedusa hotspot. On Saturday evening, the Galaxy ferry with 760 migrants on board crashed into the quay during a docking maneuver in the port of Porto Empedocle in Sicily and might not let the migrants get off for hours, Italian media reported. On Saturday, 1050 people were brought to Sicily by ferries from Lampedusa.
Number of illegal entries doubled
Almost 95,000 arrivals of migrants by sea have been registered in Italy so far this year. The number of illegal entries via the Mediterranean has thus doubled compared to the same period last year.
The central Mediterranean is one of the most dangerous migration routes in the world. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 22,000 people have drowned or are missing there since 2014.
45 migrants were rescued following the seven meter long boat they were traveling in sank in the waters off Lampedusa. The survivors of the shipwreck are from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Guinea, Liberia, Mali and Niger, including seven women and one minor. They were all taken to Lampedusa. No one died or was missing.
During the Angelus prayer on Sunday, Pope Francis condemned the “tragic shipwreck in the Mediterranean Sea” in which 41 migrants lost their lives this week. Since the beginning of the year, around 2,000 migrants have died trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe.
“Open Wound for Our Humanity”
“It is with pain and shame that we have to realize that since the beginning of the year almost 2,000 men, women and children have died in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe. This is an open wound for our humanity,” said the Pope.
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