Italy mourns more than 100 migrants killed in Lampedusa shipwreck
Divers recover bodies off Lampedusa
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Survivors say they set fire to clothes to try to get help after the boat's engine stopped
- At least 111 people died when a boat capsized off the Italian island of Lampedusa
- Italian authorities estimate that 200 people are still unaccounted for
- "Today is a day of tears," Pope Francis says, as Italy marks a day of mourning
Italy's government declared Friday a day of national mourning in the wake of the shipwreck.
Rescue efforts continued through the day, with divers at the site of the wreck, but rough waters complicated their task.
Four children were among
the dead, alongside 49 women and 58 men, coast guard spokesman Filippo
Marini said. Another 155 people have been rescued: 145 men, six women
and four children.
Italy-bound African refugee boat capsizes
Why a ship sank on Italy's coast
There are fears the death
toll could rise further since the boat, which capsized after catching
fire just half a mile off the coast, may have been carrying as many as
500 migrants from Africa. Italian authorities estimate that about 200
people are not accounted for.
The U.N. refugee agency said that all but one of the survivors were from Eritrea, in the Horn of Africa. The other was Tunisian.
Among those who escaped
with their lives are 40 unaccompanied boys between ages 14 and 17, said
Melissa Fleming, chief spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency. She
described the migrants as exhausted and in a state of shock.
Survivors recounted a
harrowing tale of 13 days spent on the boat, which picked up its
passengers from the Libyan towns of Misrata and Zuwara, to the west,
Fleming said.
As they approached the
coast of Lampedusa, the engine stopped. The migrants hoped to be
spotted, but, they told the U.N. agency, fishing boats passed by without
helping, so they set fire to clothes and blankets in a bid to attract
attention. A tourist boat finally sounded the alert, and the coast guard
came to their rescue, Fleming said.
The survivors have been
taken to a reception center that's already overcrowded with about 1,000
other recent arrivals by boat, she said.
Lampedusa, south of
Sicily and the closest Italian island to Africa, has become a
destination for tens of thousands of refugees seeking to enter European
Union countries. And such wrecks of migrant boats, although on a smaller
scale, have become all too common.
Pope Francis, who gave
his unscripted remarks while meeting with the poor on a visit to Assisi,
the birthplace of his namesake Saint Francis, also railed Thursday
against what occurred in Lampedusa.
Labeling the tragedy a "disgrace," he called for concerted action to ensure it is not repeated in future.
He visited Lampedusa in July to pray for refugees and migrants lost at sea and criticized then what he called "global indifference" to the island's refugee crisis.
'Fundamentally wrong'
Despite the dangers of
taking to the sea in boats that are often barely seaworthy, thousands of
migrants and asylum seekers depart North Africa's shores every year in
search of a better life.
Another 13 men drowned
off Italy's southern coast Monday when they attempted to swim ashore,
the U.N. refugee agency said Thursday.
And last week, the Italian coast guard rescued a ship bound for Lampedusa from Tunisia that had 398 Syrian refugees on board.
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said the tragedy "should serve as a wake-up call" to the world.
"There is something
fundamentally wrong in a world where people in need of protection have
to resort to these perilous journeys," he said.
He called for more
effective international cooperation to crack down on people smugglers,
saying the latest tragedy shows how vital it is for refugees "to have
legal channels to access territories where they can find protection."
Maurizio Albahari,
assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame,
said it was time for Europe to enact new policies rather than simply
shed tears for those who died -- or blame the traffickers.
"To solve the problem,
it is vital to understand what it is that routinely brings thousands of
migrants to trust smugglers, face exorbitant costs and risk their lives
on unseaworthy vessels," he said. "It's quite simple. It is legally
impossible for them to travel safely on planes and ferries."
This can be because
their oppressive home countries won't grant them exit visas or because
they're poor and can't offer the financial guarantees needed for a
European visa to be granted, he said.
"But they risk the many
dangers to escape despair," he said. "They fall through the immense
cracks of a system that needs them for a job or might grant them asylum,
but only if they first make it through miles of peril and years of
exploitation."
Rights group Human
Rights Watch said in its World Report 2013 that "ongoing serious human
rights abuses, forced labor and indefinite military service prompt
thousands of Eritreans to flee the country every year."
No election has been
held since it gained independence in 1993, the rights group said.
Meanwhile, torture, arbitrary detention and severe restrictions on
people's freedoms "remain routine in Eritrea."
Overcrowded boats
Just under 115
kilometers (70 miles) from Tunisia, Lampedusa has been the first point
of entry to Europe for more than 200,000 refugees and irregular migrants
who have passed through the island since 1999.
But boats carrying migrants often are in peril at sea.
In recent years, the
Italian coast guard says, it has been involved in the rescue of more
than 30,000 refugees around the island.
Izabella Cooper, a
spokeswoman for the European Union's border agency, Frontex, said
migrants are often sent to sea in overcrowded vessels without the engine
power to make such a long and dangerous journey.
Since the start of the
year, Frontex -- which supports the efforts of individual EU member
states -- has helped save more than 16,000 lives in search-and-rescue
operations, she said.
"Italy is currently
facing the biggest migratory pressure of all European countries," she
said, adding that more than 31,500 have reached its shores since the
beginning of the year.
The migrants mainly set
off from Libya, but others also leave from Egypt, she said. "We see an
increasing amount of Eritreans, Somalis, to a lesser extent sub-Saharan
Africans, and an increasing number of Syrian nationals."
While Italy is the
current focus of efforts by migrants and asylum-seekers hoping to enter
the European Union, Cooper said, that has not always been the case.
"Seven years ago, it was
the Canary Islands, then the pressure moved to the central
Mediterranean, then it moved to Greece, then with the Arab Spring, it
moved back to Italy," she said.
"There are definitely too many lives lost and definitely too many tragedies in the Mediterranean."
Dead or missing at sea
Rights group Amnesty
International called for both Italy and the European Union to do more to
safeguard the thousands who risk their lives each year in the hope of
protection or a better life, rather than focusing on closing off the
borders.
According to a briefing
published by the U.N. refugee agency in July, the peak crossing period
for migrants and asylum-seekers runs from May to September.
The U.N. refugee agency
recorded 40 deaths in the first six months of 2013, a figure based on
interviews with survivors of the crossing.
For 2012 as a whole,
15,000 migrants and asylum-seekers reached Italy and Malta, and almost
500 people were reported dead or missing at sea, it said.
The U.N. agency credits
the efforts of the Italian coast guard and Maltese armed forces for a
reduction in migrant deaths in the first half of 2013 compared with the
previous year.
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