Thousands of migrants flee north Africa for Italy
Tue, 16 Aug 2011 12:47 GMT
People who fled the unrest in Tunisia arrive at the southern Italian island of Lampedusa April 8, 2011. REUTERS/Antonio Parrinello
ROME, Aug 16 (Reuters) - A boat carrying around 280 migrants arrived in the small Italian island of Lampedusa from north Africa on Tuesday, bringing the total number of arrivals since the weekend to more than 2,000, authorities said.
Tens of thousands of refugees and would-be migrants have arrived in Lampedusa since the upheavals in North Africa this year, setting off a crisis that has come close to overwhelming the tiny island.
According to estimates from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, more than 1,500 people have died trying to make the crossing in overcrowded, often poorly maintained fishing vessels.
UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards said the weekend arrivals had come from Libya and Tunisia and included 200 women and 30 children.
"The majority, some 1,800, set sail from Janzour, 23 km west of Tripoli where they had waited for over a week for calm sea conditions to depart," he told a news briefing in Geneva.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi pledged in April to clear Lampedusa and resolve the migration problem by moving new arrivals to reception centres elsewhere in Italy and speeding up repatriation accords with Tunisia.
However thousands of refugees have arrived since then from both Tunisia and Libya, where previous strict border controls have disappeared following the NATO aerial bombing campaign against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
On Tuesday, a separate sailing boat, carrying 56 migrants believed to be from Afghanistan, was also picked up off the coast near Otranto, on the heel of Italy, police said. (Reporting by Daniele Mari and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Jon Hemming)
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