Theresa Maggio

Hindered by Force 5 winds and waves in the dark of night, the coast guard ship Gregoretti took on 573 migrants found in a shipwreck at sea last night. Two of the migrants, a man and a woman, were dead. Seven had severe respiratory problems, probably due to breathing in diesel fumes. One is in desperate  Read More 

From the Washington Post:
By Michael Birnbaum November 30 at 1:00 AM

BRUSSELS — Migrants heading to Italy from Libya in leaky boats and inflatable dinghies have broken an annual arrivals record, Italian authorities said this week, underscoring the rising popularity of an increasingly deadly journey that nowadays aims not for land, but for a frigid mid-sea rescue.

The number of boat migrants reaching Italy from North Africa this year surpassed 171,000, topping the previous record of 170,100, set in 2014, the Italian Interior Ministry said Monday. But 2016 is also the most lethal year for those trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. So far, 4,690 people have died en route, compared with 3,771 deaths for all of last year, according to the U.N. refugee agency. Read More 

From The Guardian:
"You can smell the camp before you see it. The stench of rank sewage cuts through the crisp morning air in this quiet corner of western Sicily. From a distance it looks like an open-air dump, festering amid the olive groves. Men emerge from flimsy tents pitched amid piles of rubbish and ramshackle huts made of cardboard and plastic sheets.

This makeshift and filthy encampment is home to 1,200 people. All African refugees and migrants, they are desperately competing for the opportunity to work long hours in the fields as illegal agricultural workers for paltry, exploitative wages. It is autumn in Sicily. There is olive oil to be made...." Read More 

Save the Children's rescue ship Vos Hestia arrived Trapani, Sicily this morning bearing 400 migrants saved off the coast of Libya. Among them many children and women. One woman gave birth on the rescue ship. Another 641 disembarked at Catania, Sicily from the ship Aquarius run by the rescue group SOS Meditteranee.

About 240 people are suspected to have drowned this week in four separate incidents in the Mediterranean, raising the total annual death toll to an unprecedented 4,500.
From The Guardian
About 130 asylum seekers are missing after a rubber boat capsized on Sunday night, while another 100 are thought to have drowned on Tuesday night in a separate  Read More 

From ANSA:
550 people were saved in five distinct rescue operations on the Mediterranean Sea today. The rescues were coordinated by the Italian Coast Guard headquarters in Rome. In the course of the day, five corpses were also recovered from the waters.

From La Repubblica Palermo on line:
When they pulled them from the bottom of a that rubber raft about to go under their mother had just died, overcome by the mix of diesel fuel and sea water from which she tried to protect her two children. For the entire voyage of the ship Vos  Read More 

They risked their lives to get to this point.

From La Repubblica Palermo today:
"As the rain fell tensions rose," wrote Repubblica reporter Claudia Brunetto.
Disembarkation operations yesterday for hundreds of newly rescued boat people were only half done by 6 p.m.. The remaining hundreds were left on the ship's deck in the cold rain to await processing: a sandwich to eat, clothes  Read More 

From The Guardian:

"More than 2,200 people have been rescued in the Mediterranean as they tried to reach Europe and 10 bodies recovered, Italy’s coast guard has said in a statement.

They were picked up from 13 rubber dinghies, two small boats and one large vessel in 16 separate rescue operations on Saturday.
Rising death toll in  Read More 

Four newborns, including one baby just months old, were among the 668 immigrants on 5 Zodiac rubber rafts saved this morning between 4 and 9 a.m. Italian time by the ship Bourbon Argos leased by Doctors Without Borders.
"It took us at least ten hours to save all of them. By luck the calm sea facilitated the process," said Michele Telaro, project chief at Doctors Without Borders aboard the Bourbon Argos. H added," We are worried about the coming winter, because we expect more difficult rescues and the people will be more at risk of shipwreck and medical problems because of adverse weather conditions."
The year 2016 has become the worst for deaths in the Mediterranean with 4,200 dead registered up to now, declared Tommaso Fabbri,Doctors Without Borders Italy mission chief. "Facing this new, shameful record, the European Union cannot continue to pretend nothing happened and make itself an accomplice to this this ever-increasing tragedy. We urgently need legal and safe ways for desparate people to find safety in Europe with risking, or losing, their lives." Read More