Libya let a woman and child aboard a
drifting migrant boat die, NGO Proactiva Open Arms said Tuesday,
publishing a photo of the two bodies in the sea, amid the
wreckage of the boat.
"The Libyan coast guard said it intercepted a boat with 158
people aboard supplying medical and humanitarian assistance,"
said NGO founder Oscar Camps.
"But they didn't say they left two women and a child aboard
and sank the ship because they didn't want to board the motor
launches".
Interior ministry sources said that the NGO was peddling
"fake news".
The sources said that "in the next few hours" the ministry
will publish "the version of third-party observers who deny the
news that the Libyans failed to supply assistance".
Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said Tuesday he had never
said people should be left in the sea to drown.
"I challenge anyone to find a tweet in which I invite people
to leave a human being in the sea," he said.
"My goal is to save everyone, rescue everyone, treat
everyone, nourish everyone, but also to stop everyone arriving
in Italy".
Salvini said he was "hanging tough" in the face of alleged
"lies and insults" from migrant-rescue NGOs.
He said "lies and insults from some foreign NGOs confirm that
we're in the right: cutting departures and landings means
reducing the deaths, and reducing the gains of those speculating
on clandestine immigration."
Salvini said "I'm hanging tough. #closedports and
#openhearts".
The minister was responding to charges from NGO Proactiva
Open Arms which said that the number of migrant drownings had
risen since Salvini closed Italian ports to foreign NGOs.
Four out of 30 migrants aboard a vessel off the Sicilian
island of Linosa drowned after jumping into the sea when they
saw the Protector and Monte Sperone vessels of EU border agency
Frontex and Italian finance police, the victims' relatives and
friends confirmed on Tuesday.
Eleven crew members of the boat carrying the migrants were
arrested on Tuesday and charged with their death as a
consequence of another crime, prosecutors in Ragusa said.
The Libyan coast guard on Monday stopped a migrant boat with
158 migrants aboard.
These included 34 women and nine children, sources said.
The boat was intercepted off the city of Khoms, the coast
guard said.
The migrants received humanitarian and medical assistance and
were taken to a refugee camp at Khoms, the coast guard said.
The 450 migrants including many unaccompanied minors landed
at Pozzallo in Sicily Monday.
France, Malta, Germany, Spain and Portugal have agreed to
take 50 each and Ireland has said it will take 20, in the first
such distribution of migrants.
Austria won't take in any of the 450 migrants, Chancellor
Sebastian Kurz told Premier Giuseppe Conte Tuesday according to
the APA news agency.
"Austria has since 2015 accepted over 150,000 asylum requests
and, in relation to the size of its population, has sustained
one of the biggest contributions to the EU's migrant policy," he
said.
"Many other countries have accepted very few".
Austria, therefore, will not "take part in a further
redistribution", Kurz said.
Carers are lacking due to the government's clampdown on
migrants, the Sant'Egidio lay Catholic ecumenical community said
Tuesday.
"Carers have dropped because of the restrictions envisaged
for immigrants and the halt to migrant flows," it said.
"I raised the question with Premier (Giuseppe), Conte," said
community president Marco Impagliazzo.
Impagliazzo urged the government to issue 50,00 work visas
for carers "at once" and warned that "the elderly are at risk".
Migrant arrivals in Spain have overtaken those in Italy, the
International Organisation for Migration (IOM) told reporters on
Tuesday.
From the start of the year to July 15 some 18,106 landed on
Spanish shores on the western Mediterranean route while 17,827
came to Italy on the central route from Libya, the IOM told the
press.
Spain's migrant emergency is meanwhile continuing with more
than 892 people rescued at the weekend alone off Andalusian
shores.
Some 1,433 migrants have drowned in the Mediterranean trying
to reach a better life in Europe so far this year, the
International Organisation for Migration said Tuesday.
A total of 50,872 migrants and refugees reached Europe by sea
from the start of the year until July 15, the IOM said.
The central Med route to Italy from Libya remains the most
lethal with 1,104 victims since the start of the year, almost
four times the number reported on the Spain route (294).
although the number or arrivals in both countries is almost
identical.
Frontex said Tuesday there was an 87% drop in migrant
arrivals to Italy in June compared to the same month last year.
There were just 3,000 arrivals across the central
Mediterranean from Libya this June, it said.
The western Med route has become the most active with 6,400
arrivals in Spain, a 166% rise on June 2017, Frontex said.
In general in the fist half of this year the number of
irregular crossings to the EU, at 60,430, is almost half what it
was in the same period last year.
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