Italian coast guards intercepted about 250 would-be illegal immigrants off the coast of southern Italy on Thursday night, port officials said on Friday.
A small motorised trawler was stopped about 20km off the island of Lampedusa, south of Sicily, overnight, a Palerma port official told Agence France-Presse. It was carrying about 210 people, four of them women.
”Shortly afterwards a second, even smaller, boat was captured near the first with 32 people on board, two of them women,” the source added.
Coastguards took all the migrants to the island of Lampedusa, 300km from the north coast of Libya and 200km south of Sicily.
They were due to be taken on Friday to the island’s closed transit centre, where officials will identify them and establish whether they have a claim for asylum in Italy.
Italy’s chief harbour master announced on Thursday that 207 vessels had been intercepted in 2005 off the coast of Italy, carrying 22 000 would-be illegal immigrants.
Coast guards and customs officials discovered an additional 70 bodies over the same period.
Italian Catholic charity the Community of Sant’Egidio estimates that more than 2 000 would-be illegal immigrants have died at sea while trying to get to Italy since 1990. — AFP
