https://www.thelocal.it/20161003/italy-leads-mass-migrant-rescue-on-disaster-anniversary
Italy leads mass migrant rescue on disaster anniversary
AFP
3 October 2016
Italy coordinated the rescue of 2,600 migrants off Libya, three years to the day after 368 people died in a sinking that first alerted the world to the Mediterranean migrant crisis.
Numerous children were among those saved from distressed vessels on Monday, including 700 who had been crammed onto a fishing boat, the coastguard said.
Two women and a child had to be evacuated for medical treatment after suffering severe burns caused by spilled fuel during a rescue from a rubber dinghy by a boat operated by the Doctors without Borders (MSF) charity.
In the disaster three years ago, a fishing boat packed with some 500 people caught fire and sank rapidly in darkness just off the outlying Italian island of Lampedusa in the night of October 2-3rd.
A total of 366 bodies were recovered in the hold or washed up on the coast of an island where Pope Francis had, a few months previously, railed against the "globalization of indifference" towards the plight of migrants seeking better lives in Europe.
The disaster resulted in Italy's navy launching a large-scale search and rescue operation that has since evolved into a multinational effort involving groups like MSF and Save the Children.
Hundreds of thousands have been rescued but at least 11,000 people have drowned in the Mediterranean since the Lampedusa tragedy, according to figures collated by the UN refugee agency. Around 3,500 have died in 2016.
Italy has declared October 3rd a national day of commemoration and welcome in honour of the dead. Around 1000 people marched to the Gate of Europe, a five metre-high monument built in Lampedusa in 2008 which is dedicated to migrants who come to Sicily in search of a better life.
Received on Mon Oct 03 2016 - 09:59:59 EDT