More migrant deaths, arrivals stir row

(ANSA) - Rome, March 4 - Another 10 deaths of migrants and the arrival of 1,000 more in the Mediterranean Wednesday stirred emotions and spurred the European Union to pledge greater efforts to save the lives of those who try the desperate crossing from North Africa.
    The leader of the anti-immigrant Northern League, Matteo Salvini, pounced on the deaths to say that Italian officials' hands were "covered with blood" because of their alleged encouragement of people paying unscrupulous smugglers to aim to achieve better lives in Europe.
    Close to 1,000 refugees were heading to Sicily after rescue operations in the southern Mediterranean in which the Italian authorities also recovered the 10 dead bodies. The coast guard said Wednesday that a total of 941 migrants were saved in operations it had coordinated in the previous 24 hours. Coast Guard ship Dattilo was carrying 121 people saved from an overturned boat and the bodies of 10 people who died during the incident, plus another 318 migrants rescued in a separate operation. The Dattilo was heading to the southern Sicilian port of Augusta.
    Another vessel was carrying 319 people to another Sicilian port, Porto Empedocle, while a tanker holding 183 was on the way to Pozzallo.
    Northern League leader Salvini said that the hands of Premier Matteo Renzi and Interior Minister Angelino Alfano were soiled with blood after the latest migrant-boat disaster. Salvini argues that, by rescuing migrants, the Italian authorities are encouraging human traffickers and making the situation worse.
    "Another 10 deaths and 900 illegal immigrants ready to land," Salvini said.
    "Pockets are full and hands are dirty with blood in Rome and Brussels. "Stop the departures, stop the deaths, stop the invasion.
    Renzi and Alfano are dangerous for the Italians and for the immigrants".
    Flavio Di Giacomo, the Italy spokesperson for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), said talk by Salvini and others of an "invasion" was misplaced.
    "You have to remember that the 170,000 migrants who arrived last year came to an area populated by 500 million people," he said, adding that "the major flow is only in the Sicilian Channel.
    But he warned that the influx of migrants spelled "a humanitarian and operational emergency".
    European Migration and Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said it was no good passing the buck to the European Union after the latest migrant disaster in the southern Mediterranean. The death of 10 refugees has reignited debate about the effectiveness of the Triton programme, which is coordinated by EU agency Frontex and replaced Italy's better-funded Mare Nostrum search-and-rescue operation last year. "Enough already of the politics of passing the buck," Avramopoulos said. "Let's have a clear, realistic attitude about what the EU can do and what it cannot do.
    "Frontex is not the EU's border guard. If we want a system of border guards, we have to create it.
    "If we want Frontex to do more, we have to give it more resources". EC Vice-President Frans Timmermans echoed those sentiments, saying the EU member states must be ready to take responsibility for sharing the burden of the migrant crisis.
    "Migration is a problem that concerns all the member states," Timmermans said. "It's no longer Mare Nostrum (Our Sea), but Europa Nostra (Our Europe)".