http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/31/italy-migrants-eu-idUSL5N0SQ52620141031?feedType=RSS&feedName=industrialsSector
Italy to end sea rescue mission that saved 100,000 migrants
Fri Oct 31, 2014 2:11pm EDT
* Rights groups warn of risk of more deaths
* EU mission Triton will have more limited scope
* Italy will save more than 100 million euros per year
By Steve Scherer and Massimiliano Di Giorgio
ROME, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Italy said on Friday it would close a sea
rescue mission that has saved the lives of more than 100,000 migrants
from Africa and the Middle East, a move one rights group warned could
lead to a "surge of deaths" in the Mediterranean.
Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said the Mare Nostrum or "Our Sea"
mission would end to make way for a smaller European Union scheme -
and to help relieve the strain on Italy's public finances amid a
three-year economic slump.
"Mare Nostrum is closing down because it was an emergency operation,"
Alfano told a news conference.
The Italian navy began Mare Nostrum just over a year ago when more
than 360 men, women and children - mostly Eritreans - drowned when
their overcrowded boat capsized a mile off the Sicilian island of
Lampedusa.
Even with five warships on permanent patrol in the waters between
Sicily and North Africa -- backed up by helicopter, plane and drone
surveillance -- about 3,300 migrants have died attempting the crossing
this year, the U.N. refugee agency estimates.
Alfano said Italy had spent 114 million euros to operate the mission
over the past year and the closure would reduce spending "to zero".
Italy would still respect the rules of the sea and respond to SOS
calls, he said, adding that cutting spending would not necessarily
lead to more tragedy.
"The number of people who die is not proportionate to the number of
euros spent," Alfano said.
Human rights activists warned that the closure was likely to lead to
many more people drowning.
"There are no alternative routes to reach Europe, and conflicts are on
the rise not only inSyria but also Iraq and other places. So there
will be a greater risk of more sea tragedies without Mare Nostrum,"
Stefano Di Carlo, Doctors Without Borders operational chief in Italy,
told Reuters.
"There is a very high risk is that there will be a surge of deaths at
sea," said Riccardo Noury, an Italian spokesman for Amnesty
International.
Most of those seeking to enter Europe through Italy via the
Mediterranean are refugees, including tens of thousands fleeing
Syria's civil war and a similar number escaping forced military
conscription in Eritrea, the U.N. refugee agency says.
People smugglers have taken advantage of Libya's political instability
and lawlessness to send convoys off its coast, making as much as a
half million dollars from each overcrowded and rickety boat, according
to Interior Ministry estimates.
TRITON
Italy has long called for the EU to do more to help migrants. Earlier
this month, Rome finally agreed to start working with a more limited
rescue mission called Triton, overseen by EU border control agency
Frontex.
Twenty-one EU countries are contributing, but the mission will be
limited to patrolling the waters within 30 nautical miles from the
Italian coast, while Mare Nostrum reached all the way across the
Mediterranean to the coast off Libya.
Any migrants picked up will still be brought to Italian ports and
housed in immigration centres, though the vast majority of those who
have been rescued over the past year did not stay in Italy for long,
moving quickly onto other EU countries.
Earlier this month, speaking on the anniversary of the Lampedusa
tragedy at a meeting of his left-wing party faithful in northern
Italy, Renzi said Mare Nostrum would not be abandoned until "the EU
comes up with something just as good or better".
Noury at Amnesty said it was "clear" that Renzi had broken his word.
"He was speaking to a crowd that wanted to hear those things, but
today Alfano said the opposite. There's no coherence between what
Renzi promised and what happened today," Noury said. (Writing by Steve
Scherer; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
Received on Sat Nov 01 2014 - 17:25:28 EDT