Posted on 06/30/2014 9:03:17 AM PDT by PoloSec
(Reuters) - As many as 30 corpses were found on a boat packed with migrants off the coast of Sicily, Italy's navy said on Monday after rescuing thousands of people trying to cross from North Africa over the weekend.
The dead are thought to have either suffocated on the overcrowded fishing vessel or drowned, the navy said.
The discovery on Sunday underlined the scale of the crisis in the southern Mediterranean, where hundreds have died in the past year making the journey to Europe, and tens of thousands more have been plucked from rickety boats.
More than 5,000 people were rescued this weekend, adding to the 50,000 migrants who have reached Italy from North Africa so far this year, many fleeing war and forced conscription as well as poverty and a lack of opportunity.
Italy has called on its European Union partners to do more to help manage the near daily arrivals, a phenomenon that has boosted voter support for the anti-immigration Northern League party in a country struggling to emerge from recession.
"We can't leave Italy and maybe Malta isolated. It's a European problem," Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said on a visit to Rome, noting that EU interior ministers were due to meet in Milan next week.
"We may be able to work on finding a more appropriate solution," he said.
The breakdown of order in Libya has made it virtually impossible to control the boats departing and, at the current rate, the figures should soon pass the record of 62,000 people who arrived by sea in 2011, the year of the "Arab Spring" turmoil across North Africa and the Middle East.
An Italian ship from the navy's migrant rescue mission Mare Nostrum, or "Our Sea", was due to arrive at the Sicilian port of Pozzallo on Tuesday
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
How did they get back on the boat if they drowned?
Another obama/democrat party success story. Create chaos everywhere.
That’s a modest start.
Obama’s fault!
I don’t pity the poor immigrant.
Ebola?
Was this part of the ISIS navy?
That is truly insane. Italy cannot possibly absorb such numbers. These are all Muslims.
Good question.
Have the Italians or EU been blamed yet for not sending private Jumbo Jets to Somalia, Sudan, etc., so the immigrants could travel first class to their desired country?
It’s their right, after all.
//do I even need a sarc tag??
Absorbing 50,000+ Muslim refugees per year can’t be a good thing for Italy, for many reasons.
It's not Italy they've entered,it's Europe.Once they get into any European country they can legally go to Germany,Britain,Sweden.....etc,etc,etc.
Thanks
Bush’s fault?
I know this mainly because I'm also an Irish citizen,having automatically become one under Irish law because my mother was born there.Because of that I can travel freely anywhere in the European Union as well as settle in,and work in,any EU country.In that sense it's *very* much like being a US citizen...I can travel freely from state to state and settle in,and work in,any of the 50 states and in the District of Columbia.
These Arab refugees understand all this and you can bet your bottom dollar (or euro) that their ultimate destination is one of the more prosperous countries with the most generous welfare benefits...Britain,Germany,Sweden and Denmark for example.
Obviously trying to escape from the new Islamic Caliphate.
I was worried there for a second that it might have had a more dire cause. The sea north of Sicily rests atop a caldera that releases so much sulfuric gas that it has turned the water into a strong sulfuric acid.
A release of gas so great that it could kill passengers on a boat or ship could ominously forecast something much greater.
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