Brussels, Belgium – Some 59 illegal immigrants from Ethiopia were rescued by Italian boats in the Mediterranean Wednesday night, according to an EU spoke s man.
The spokesman told PANA here Friday that the migrants were rescued following a distress call made by one of the passengers, who phoned his brother who is a lec turer at a British university.
The Ethiopian-born British lecturer then informed the British coastguards, who i n their turn alerted their Maltese and Italian colleagues who eventually provide d assistance to the 59 illegal immigrants, who include 15 women, four of them pre g nant, and five under-aged children.
By the time the rescue team arrived, the illegal passengers had been adrift for three days without food or water on the high seas, the official said.
The European Agency in charge of monitoring the external borders, FRONTEX, has s uspended its surveillance operations in the Mediterranean till 10 Sept.
A member of the NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), based in the Italian island of Lampedusa, told reporters that at least 2, 300 illegal immigrants had arrived in the island during the suspension of the operation in August.
He further revealed that dead bodies of 79 African nationals were found near Lam pedusa in the same period.
On his part, Italian Interior Minister Guiliano Amato noted that the Mediterrane an was increasingly becoming “a sea of dead bodies”, calling on the EU member st a tes “to shoulder the responsibility of this criminal traffic”.
In order to escape detection and arrests, smugglers have resorted to using small er vessels in which they pile up the immigrants, thus increasing the likelihood o f disasters.
With only 5, 500 inhabitants, the Italian island of Lampedusa, located at about 100km from the Tunisian coast, has already taken in more than 1, 000 African ill e gal immigrants at its centre, built to accommodate 190 people, according to an Italian source.
In view of the rising influx of illegal immigrants, the Italian government plans to build another centre with a capacity for 700 people.
Source: Panapress