Italy: Xenophobic immigration policy leads to hundreds of deaths in the Mediterranean

A further 73 African refugees have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea as they attempted to sail from Libya to Italy. According to the UN refugee aid organization, 525 boat refugees died at sea in 2008 and several hundred have already drowned this year.
Only five refugees from Eritrea—two young men, two boys and a young woman—survived their recent odyssey in a small boat. Their journey took 20 days, one of the survivors reported. A spokesman for the Maltese navy told CNRmedia.com that a German Frontex helicopter had detected seven corpses in Libyan waters thought to have come from the boat.
On Thursday the five exhausted and weakened Eritreans landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa. “We are the only survivors,” they said. The rest of the refugees had died along the way, and their corpses had been thrown into the sea. Several ships had crossed their path, but none of them made any attempt to help. A patrol boat went so far as to give them fuel and rescue vests, but “then they headed off again and left us behind despite our condition.”
A UNHCR spokesman reported that a fishing boat had also given the refugees bread and water but had them left them to their fate.
Such indifference on the part of ships in the Mediterranean is a new development. It completely contradicts the maritime obligation to save those in emergency. This indifference is encouraged by the policy of the Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi, which does not permit refugees to land in Italy. It has led a contemptible months-long campaign against African refugees and is quite prepared to accept the deadly consequences.
In accordance with an agreement between Italy and Libya, the Libyan coast and the Straits of Sicily are systematically searched by patrol boats. When refugees are intercepted they are returned directly to Africa. They are not even allowed to set foot on Italian soil to make a request for asylum.
The latest disaster in the Mediterranean led to a heated political exchange. The Catholic newspaper Avvenire criticized the government’s immigration policy. It accused the West of “closing its eyes” to the problem and compared the tragic fate of the boat people in the Mediterranean to the Shoah.