Muslim asylum seekers (on way to Italy, of all places) throw Christian passengers overboard in Mediterranean, killing 12

Italian police have arrested a group of asylum seekers after witnesses said they threw 12 passengers overboard following a row about religion on a boat headed to Europe.

According to survivors, the fight broke out after a group of Nigerian and Ghanaian passengers declared they were Christian.

A group of Muslim passengers allegedly attacked the Christians, which resulted in 12 Nigerian and Ghanaian passengers drowning in the Mediterranean, police said.

The remaining passengers were rescued and brought to Palermo, where the 15 alleged attackers, who came from Ivory Coast, Mali and Senegal, were arrested.

The boat, like many of the claptrap vessels flooding Italy’s shores each week with migrants fleeing conflict and poverty in Africa and the Middle East, had set out from Libya on Tuesday, according to the survivors.

The police said the distraught Nigerians and Ghanaians told a “dreadful” story of their struggle to escape with their lives “by forcefully resisting attempts to drown them, forming a veritable human chain in some cases.”

Some passengers had taken photographs of the incident, judicial sources who described the accounts as “coherent” told Italian media.

The incident aboard the boat, which was carrying about 100 asylum seekers, coincided with reports of a new drowning tragedy.

Four days after a shipwreck off the coast of Libya, in which 400 people are believed to have died, another 41 asylum seekers were feared drowned on Thursday after their rubber dinghy sank en route to Italy.

Italy pleaded for more help from other European Union countries to rescue the asylum seekers risking their lives to reach Europe and to share the burden of accommodating the arrivals.

Italy is not the final destination of most of the tens of thousands of migrants who risk their lives each year in search of a better life in Europe but as their first port of call it is saddled with handling all their asylum requests as well as saving those in danger from a watery grave.

“Ninety per cent of the cost of the patrol and sea rescue operations are falling on our shoulders, and we have not had an adequate response from the EU,” Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni told the daily Corriere della Sera.

“And then there is the difficult issue of knowing where to send those rescued at sea – to the nearest port? To the country where their boat came from? The EU has to respond clearly to these questions,” Gentiloni said.

AFP

http://www.smh.com.au/world/muslim-asylum-seekers-throw-christian-passengers-overboard-in-mediterranean-killing-12-20150416-1mmwrh.html

Italian ambassador: ‘Illegal immigration poses security threat to Europe’

Many immigrants reaching Italy’s shores cannot or do not want to be identified, posing a security threat to the whole of Europe in terms of terrorism and criminal infiltration, says Alessandro de Pedys, the Italian Ambassador to Poland.

The interview was conducted by Karolina Zbytniewska and Krzysztof Kokoszczyński from EurActiv Poland.

 For example, we have managed to start operation Triton, coordinated by the EU border agency Frontex.

…which has replaced the Italian operation “Mare Nostrum”

It is important to notice the often-confused difference between “Mare Nostrum” and Triton. The latter is a border control operation, while the former is a search and rescue programme.

While they may seem similar in practice, they diverge on one important legal aspect, i.e. who is responsible for the migrants intercepted during the operations. While in the case of “Mare Nostrum” it was us – Italy – that would be obliged to take care of them, in case of Triton, as it is a border control mission, they fall under jurisdiction of whichever country’s border they are trying to cross.

But surely simply capturing migrants cannot be the only response of the EU to the question of migration?

No, of course not. We do not actually “capture” migrants, we intercept and often rescue them. We think that the best solution to the overflow of migrants to the EU is the cooperation with the countries of origin.

Of course, it is not always possible – for example, many of the immigrants come from Libya, which is currently in a state of disarray, with two separate governments and internal tensions running high.

Nevertheless, we have organised conferences during our presidency with other African countries. We hope that direct and long-term engagement will help to minimise the push factors causing people to emigrate from there to Europe in the first place.

“Illegal immigration is a threat for the whole of the EU”

Given that most of the illegal immigrants arrive through the Mediterranean, it seems understandable that Italy considers it to be an important topic. But how would you convince the northern EU countries that migration is also their concern?

It is a threat for the whole of the EU. 170,000 migrants who arrived illegally on the shores of Sicily are a proof of that.

Many of these people cannot or do not want to be identified – there are a potential security threat to the whole of Europe in terms of terrorist and criminal infiltration, besides the economic concerns.

Last year’s Ebola virus outbreak in Africa also underlined the health risks carried by immigrants whose country or area of origin cannot be ascertained.

 Via..http://www.euractiv.com/sections/eu-priorities-2020/italian-ambassador-illegal-immigration-poses-security-threat-europe