Italy rescues 760 Libya refugees in boat

Italy rescues 760 Libya refugees in boat

April 20, 2011 - 3:29AM

AFP

Around 760 people including women and children fleeing the crisis in Libya crammed into a single fishing trawler have been rescued by Italy's coast guard as their vessel floundered.

"It's one of the biggest landings on Lampedusa," a Red Cross helper said on Tuesday, adding that there were 62 women and 17 children among the refugees from Bangladesh, Mali, Nigeria and Pakistan, including newborn babies.

Aid workers rushed to help an eight-months pregnant woman whose waters had broken and who gave birth in Lampedusa's small hospital, where three doctors and eight nurses were on hand to take care of the newly-arrived refugees.

"We've just helped hundreds of sub-Saharan Africans to shore... identity checks are already under way," the coast guard spokesman of the southern Lampedusa island, Vittorio Alessandro, said earlier in the day.

Italian TG1 television footage showed Italy's coast guard pulling up alongside the decrepit trawler as it sat dangerously low in the water and clambering aboard in protective clothing to carry out preliminary checks.

Exhausted-looking refugees sat or stood squeezed in together on two levels of the trawler, clutching a handful of personal possessions between them as they waited to be taken ashore.

"They say they set out from Tripoli two days ago at five in the morning. They took advantage of a break in the bad weather, but the wind is picking up again and by this evening the seas will be rough again," Alessandro said.

The overcrowded fishing boat was leaning dangerously and was drifting off course when the coast guard intervened to tow it to safety, Lampedusa's port authority said, according to ANSA news agency.

Had they not been intercepted, the boat would have drifted on towards Sicily but would most likely have sunk before reaching the shore as the weather turned bad once more, the authorities said.

A boat carrying 50 immigrants who claimed to be Tunisians landed on Lampedusa during the night.

The arrivals came after a four-day lull due to bad weather.

Hundreds of refugees from other parts of Africa formerly held in detention camps in Libya have fled to Italy since the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi's regime began.