More than 76,000 people have landed on the Italian coast since the start of the year, against 50,000 over the same period in 2021 and 26,000 a year earlier, according to the Italian Interior Ministry.
Le Monde with AFP
It is one more drama on the roads of exile for Europe. Two children were killed, and at least five women injured in a fire on a boat trying to cross the Mediterranean towards Europe, the Italian coast guards and agencies announced on Friday, October 21. “In agreement with the Maltese authorities, a patroller of the coast guard of [the Italian island of] Lampedusa was dispatched to the scene and recovered 38 migrants, including the bodies of two miners,” the authorities announced in a statement .
The two children whose burned bodies were found on board were 1 and 2 years old and a 25 -year -old pregnant woman, who would be the mother of one of them, was evacuated to the hospital of Palermo, according to Italian agencies. A Tunisian fishing boat, who arrived the first on the spot, reported an explosion aboard the boat, the coast guards said. The Agrigento prosecutor’s office in Sicily opened an investigation after this fire which would have been caused by the explosion of a gas cylinder or fuel inflammation. The migrants rescued were taken care of in Lampedusa, off Tunisia, while a woman remained missing.
“Europe must act”
The mayor of Lampedusa, Filippo Mannino, spoke of a “hell” and called the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to go there. “I have been a mayor for barely a hundred days and I have already identified five dead” among the many migrants leaving the North African coasts every day by embarking on pneumatic boats or trawlers in poor condition, he reacted. “Europe must act without delay, it is no longer possible to let people die,” he added.
More than 76,000 people have landed on the Italian coast since the start of the year, against 50,000 over the same period of 2021 and 26,000 a year earlier, according to the Italian Interior Ministry. Since the beginning of the year, 1,269 migrants have disappeared in the central Mediterranean, which thus constitutes the most dangerous migratory route in the world, according to the International Organization for Migration.