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(Image: Francesco Malavolta/AP/PA)
THE EU’S EXECUTIVE today pushed for extra resources to launch Mediterranean-wide search and rescue patrols after the Lampedusa tragedy as Europe struggles to cope with the flood of refugees knocking on its doors.
EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem went into talks with the bloc’s home affairs ministers saying she would propose “a big Frontex operation right across the Mediterranean from Cyprus to Spain for a big search and rescue operation”.
“I’m going to ask for the backing and the resources needed to do this, to save more lives,” Malmstroem said.
The shipwreck off Lampedusa last week, in which more than 300 African asylum-seekers are feared dead, has put the divisive question of migration back on the front page of the EU’s political agenda.
Carabinieri paramilitary police officers and migrants waiting to board a ferry boat from Lampedusa, to temporary camps (Image: Luca Bruno/AP/PA).
Earlier today, 400 people claiming to be Syrian and Palestinian refugees were saved off the Italian coast by a Danish and a Panamanian vessel when their boats ran into trouble.
Frontex is the European Union agency in charge of policing the 28-nation bloc’s borders against illegal migration.
Malmstroem, who will visit the site of the Lampedusa disaster tomorrow with European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, will ask the ministers to beef up cash contributions to Frontex and loan it ships and aircraft.
Set up in 2004 to coordinate and improve border management and stage joint operations, the Warsaw-based agency has seen its budget fall over the past three years and relies on the goodwill of member states for other equipment.
“This is a great concrete signal” of support, said Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano. “We are asking for Europe to lend us a hand to save lives.”
“Lampedusa is also a border of the EU.”
30,000 migrants
Italy complains that Europe’s battered southern economies – Greece, Malta, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Spain – are left to cope with the refugees washing up on their shores or slipping across the porous border with Turkey.
Rome, which says 30,000 migrants have arrived so far this year, or four times more than usual, wants wealthier northern Europe to share the burden and for migration to be put on the agenda of a summit in Brussels at the end of the month.
Malmstroem agreed on the need for more burden-sharing, saying there were six to seven nations who take all the responsibility “and we are 28 member states”.
But ministers from Denmark, Germany and Sweden firmly denied their governments were turning their backs on people seeking asylum from political torment or economic misery.
Germany was Europe’s most generous nation towards asylum-seekers, said Home Affairs Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich. It took in nearly 950 refugees per million inhabitants compared to Italy’s almost 260 refugees per million inhabitants.
Last year, 70 percent of the 330,000 asylum-seekers in Europe were registered in five EU nations — Germany with 77,500, France 60,600, Sweden 44,000, Britain 28,000 and Belgium also with 28,000.
Many of these people arrive by plane, often with tourist visas, or by land.
Austria’s Internal Affairs Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner agreed that there must be more burden sharing. “All the countries with low asylum quotas must take action,” she said.
Italian Coast Guard personnel recover a body bag on their patrol boat in Lampedusa island (Image: Francesco Malavolta/AP/PA).
As the ministers met, divers brought up more bodies off Lampedusa as they resumed the gruelling search for the more than 200 still missing after their ship sank with 500 Eritrean and Somalian refugees on board.
Rescuers pulled 155 people from the sea and so far 235 bodies have been found. The final death toll is expected to be between 300 and 360.
Italian judicial authorities meanwhile issued an arrest warrant against Tunisian Kaled Bensalam, the captain of the sunken ship who is facing charges of trafficking, manslaughter and aiding illegal migration.
- © AFP 2013.
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Yeah like the Americans destroyed their stockpile, does anyone really belive that?
@Jimmyjoe Wallace:
They haven’t, at least not all of it. The US still has over 500 tonnes of chemical weapons that are scheduled to be destroyed in the coming years.
The US and Russia came to an agreement regarding the destruction of Cold War era chemical weapons and both countries have destroyed over 90% of their stockpiles. If either country wasn’t fulfilling it’s promises regarding the destruction of chemical weapons stockpiles we’d know about it.
I love the hypocrisy of some people
Not a mention of the Russians who had and may still have the biggest chemical and biological stockpile in history
It’s only bad when the US does it, for some people
@Jason Culligan – How would we know either party wasn’t fulfilling it’s it’s promises RE: destruction of chemical weapons?? Who oversee’s and ensures it has been carried out on both sides??
Well, this advertising feature has certainly worked on me! Where can I buy this stuff?
I can’t believe a communist leader would do such a thing. surely communist good capitalist bad. as the aaa/pbp
@Patrick Gough: Yes Patrick. This horrific inhuman chemical was created by communists as the article clearly states :P
@Eoghan Holland:
A quick google search shows that the USSR also produced weaponised VX. They may not have invented it, but they did make it.
@Jason Culligan: Fair point Jason. Not going to argue with you on it :) – It was just a little irresistible as Patrick here somehow has transformed his dislike of a political party into a moot point and i just thought it would be fun to counter it. I wouldn’t advocate north korean policies or assign myself to any political force, just thought i’d see how the straw man faired with a wee flame…
Actually look closely at AAAPBP economic policies it mentions ‘direct allocation’ of goods by the state as a future goal
Something the NKs are meant to have (hasn’t worked) and their lit is filled with references to a planned economy
Would that be the same family of organophosphate That was used in sheep dip and plug in air fresheners not so long ago
@Peter Hargan: It was Kim’s farts in a cloth?
15 years of the war with terrorism, but not with Kim. No oil in NK.
Guinness farts are toxic too.
You’d know…cooney…
So herewith evidence that NoKo has WMD. Will the imminent US invasion be televised?
’10 times more powerful as…’ not ’10 times as powerful as’.
If the two girls accused had the nerve gas on their hands and rubbed it in his face, how are they still alive
One of them was vomiting and I’ll after the attack so it is suspected she may have been in touch with a tiny amount. It appears from the CCTV footage that they rubbed his face with cloths. If only one side of the cloth was contaminated it would have lessened the risk to them.
Because the dose makes the poison
There’s cyanide in apples but not in a high enough dose to kill you
If you took 4 solphadene tablets at once now you’d not die but if we’re taking 100 at once you’d get toxic levels of paracetamol for some people.
Just like radiation (we encounter it every day) it’s a matter of how much
China is suspected of supplying deadly toxic to North Korea….
@Thosj Carroll: For coal???
@Thosj Carroll: And the US supplied nukes to Israel……
Weapons of mass destruction! Means the Americans have a reason to go in now just like Iraq
Jeez! Arnt you all SO INFORMED!!!!
His wee mad brother, might be something to cause heart attacks. GMO’s like a virus that will only kill certain people with certain genetic markers, what a thought?
have your say