Eleven days after they were rescued off Lampedusa by British artist Banksy's humanitarian ship, the Louise Michel, 150 surviving migrants were transfered to the quaratine ship GNV Allegra in the waters off Palermo. The quarantine ship carries 350 people who must spend fifteen days aboard while it cruises along the Sicilian coasts. Among them are some one-hundred unaccompaned children. Today the ship sails off the coast of Augusta.
From reporter Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo for The Guardian:
So far in 2020, more than 500 refugees are known to have died in the Mediterranean, and the real number is estimated to be considerably higher.
A boat carrying dozens of refugees has burst into flames off the coast of southern Italy as its passengers were being transferred to Italian naval vessels to take them to port.
Five people are confirmed dead and two are missing at sea. Six people are in hospital with serious burns injuries, including two Italian officials who were taking the people off the boat.
The vessel was approached by an Italian naval ship that was in the process of taking migrants onboard and, according to preliminary reports, suddenly caught fire, most likely because of a fuel leakage, then exploded. The number of victims is still uncertain.....
From The Guardian newspaper:
A record-breaking satirical comedy about migrants attempting to reach Europe has provoked a row in Italy, infuriating far-right politicians and their supporters.
Tolo Tolo, starring and directed by the comedian Luca Medici, AKA Checco Zalone, 42, took in €8.7m (£7.4m) on 1 January, the best opening day of all time in Italian cinema.
The movie features a debt-ridden Italian businessman, played by Zalone, who leaves Italy to take refuge in Kenya. The outbreak of civil war forces him to pack his bags and return to Italy with some of his new African friends aboard a migrant vessel.
When rescuers came to aid of an immigrant vessel, all the immigrants ran to one side of the boat. The vessel overturned. Thirteen women were drowned. Women, and their chilren, who have less money to pay human traffickers, are often locked into rooms below decks ,where they suffer from diesel fumes and go down with the ship, and their children. An unknown number of children are missing at sea and presumed dead after this accident.
Lampedusa in the immigration news again now that ships are again allowed to land immigrants. This is from The Guardian:
At least 13 women have died and eight children are missing after a boat capsized in rough seas off the Italian island of Lampedusa on Sunday night as a patrol vessel attempted to save it.
Italian authorities have rescued 22 survivors from the boat, which was carrying about 50 people. Only four of the 13 recovered bodies have been identified by surviving family members, including that of a 12-year-old girl.
According to an initial reconstruction of events, all the people onboard moved to one end of the vessel as the rescue boat arrived, causing it to overturn. The boat, carrying mostly people from sub-Saharan Africa, had initially left Libya before sailing along the coast to reach the city of Sfax, in Tunisia, where another 15 people boarded before they continued their journey to Sicily, according to survivors.
From the Guardian:
Italy's deputy prime minister and interior minister, Matteo Salvini, is one step away from facing trial after a surprise court ruling today determined that he be tried for kidnapping.
In August, prosecutors in Agrigento, Sicily, placed Salvini, who is leader of the far-right party the League, under investigation for the alleged kidnapping and detention of 177 migrants whom he prevented from disembarking the Italian coastguard ship Ubaldo Diciotti.
The ship had been docked for six days at the Sicilian port of Catania as Salvini maintained a standoff with the EU in an attempt to push other member states to take in the migrants. The Catholic church, Ireland and Albania, which is not an EU state, eventually agreed to host the mostly Eritrean migrants.
In the face of right-wing, racist politicians who now rule Italy......
The door to Palazzo delle Aquile is covered with gold -- gold thermal blankets handed out to immigrants who are rescued from the sea. Palermo Mayor Leoluca Orlando says: "We are reminding everyone that we are engaged in defending the only race that exists: the human race."
