The most recent arrivals have been turned away and sent to Sardinia and Calabria because Sicilian immigrant "reception" centers, where immigrants are housed and fed while their fates are decided-- accepted as refugee or sent back to Africa -- are overcrowded and not up to the job of accepting or deferring waves of thousands of arrivals. SO far in 2015, 40,000 immigrants debarked in Sicily, 4,000 in the past week. Ships loaded with rescued immigrants are being routed instead to Calabria and Sardinia. At the Sicilian island of Lampedusa alone, closed for poor management and horrible treatment of immigrants and now re opened under new management -- there are 700 immigrants in a center designed to receive 300.
Sports stadiums have been turned into tent cities and churches have put beds where pews were. Palermo which welcomed 717 refugees just last Saturday can move forward thanks to the spontaneous departure of immigrants from the centers [read escape???]and to immigrant transfers to other parts of Europe.
The rescue ship run by Doctors Without Borders was loaded with some 700 immigrants they needed to bring to land. But there was no port or immigration center that could take them. The Trapani authorities decided to let 150 come ashore but instead only seven immigrants in dire need of medical help and their families debarkedi in that western Sicilian city.
Themn in charge of that rescue ship said, " We decided to not proceed with a partial disembarkement because such an operation, in a situation of such overcrowding, would have roduced serious safety risks. The situation aboard was very tense and many of the people feared they would be taken back to Libya." The ship was ordered to Calabria to offload the 700 immigrants but they had to maintain visual contact with the shoreline the whole way to Calabria so as not to feed the immigrants' fear of deportation.
Sports stadiums have been turned into tent cities and churches have put beds where pews were. Palermo which welcomed 717 refugees just last Saturday can move forward thanks to the spontaneous departure of immigrants from the centers [read escape???]and to immigrant transfers to other parts of Europe.
The rescue ship run by Doctors Without Borders was loaded with some 700 immigrants they needed to bring to land. But there was no port or immigration center that could take them. The Trapani authorities decided to let 150 come ashore but instead only seven immigrants in dire need of medical help and their families debarkedi in that western Sicilian city.
Themn in charge of that rescue ship said, " We decided to not proceed with a partial disembarkement because such an operation, in a situation of such overcrowding, would have roduced serious safety risks. The situation aboard was very tense and many of the people feared they would be taken back to Libya." The ship was ordered to Calabria to offload the 700 immigrants but they had to maintain visual contact with the shoreline the whole way to Calabria so as not to feed the immigrants' fear of deportation.