The Washngton Post published a Reuters report saying Italy now claims that 4,800 boat people were rescued over the weekend.
Sicily
Migraton flow to Lampdusa
April 14, 2015
Once again, there are now 1400 refugees and immigrants for whatever reason in an intake camp with only 250 beds. The Lampedusa holding center had been closed last year because of scandalous overcrowding, poor conditions, bad management and degrading treatment of arrivals (making people strip naked publicly to be sprayed for scabies and such). Volunteers -- Read More
3000 immigrants today
April 13, 2015
1,169 immigrants expected in Palermo alone by tomorrow morning. After the winter hiatus, immigrants are making the dangerous trip in unseaworthy boats and rafts again. More than ten rescue operations in the Canale di Sicilia today alone.
Immigrant boat capsizes off Libyan coast; 9 cadavers, 144 saved
April 13, 2015
From today's La Repubblica: A boat full of immigrants capsized 80 miles off the coast of Libya and nine people drowned trying to get to Europe. The Italian coast guard saved the 144 shipwreck survivors and put them on a military boat bound for Sicily while Coast Guard members stayed to look for more survivors or Read More
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IMMIGRANTS: one dead, a thousand rescued
April 11, 2015
They were taken to Porto Empedocle, near Agrigento, Sicily. Read it in today's La Repubblica.
1500 immigrants saved at sea in one day
April 5, 2015
Five overloaded, unseaworthy ex-fishing boats loaded with would-be immigrants were saved from danger near the Libyan shores . The Italian Navy had received a distress call via satellite phone warning that three boats were in need of rescue. The ships sent found five boats full of people and rescued all of them, taking them to Lampedusa and Porto Empedocle in Sicily. Read More
Plight of the Immigrants
March 8, 2015
By June of 2014, 59,880 migrants had landed on Italy's coast, more than arrived in all of 2011, and Sicily got 53,000 of them. All of them were treacherous voyages. Thousands of minors arrived without any family. They paid an average of $1,600 to board a broken-down fishing boat packed with 300 people, and no life vests. Life vests take up room. Read More
Ten more victims: immigrants drown at sea. 1,000 survivors expected to arrive tonight
March 4, 2015
At least ten people drown when the rubber raft they were in bounced and flipped. They were escaping Africa. They are not allowed in Europe, and so they travel clandestinely, as best they can, because ironically they must set foot in Europe in order to claim asylum. They cannot ask for help from the shores of Tripoli. Read More
Scala dei Turchi
February 25, 2015
We are deep into winter in Vermont and I am thinking about these blue and white places. Sicily is such a beautiful island. Scala dei Turchi is near the big town of Agrigento but actually in the smaller town of Realmonte, where I stayed for a few days in 2010. The white stone is hard-packed gypsum. Realmonte citizens are the happiest Sicilians I have yet found. Read More
Scopello, yesterday
February 22, 2015
Nice to think of these places during a Vermont winter. There used to be a tonnara here. The water is deep and cold because the seafloor drops off steeply just a few yards from shore.
"It is a delirium," says mayor of Lampedusa
February 17, 2015
Two hundred arrivals at Pozzallo yesterday. Another 642 expected to land at Porto Empedocle today. The immigration center at the island of Lampedusa, which had been closed down because of the worst conditions, de-staffed and opened only for emergencies is now back in use, run by a non-profit. They have 250 beds but 1,215 people to house Read More