Badly burned Libyan migrants rescued at sea
Flow of war refugees into Europe grows unabated; 900 are dead or missing
MILAN— Twenty migrants who had suffered grave burn injuries in a cooking-gas explosion before departing Libya, and then were forced onto a smuggler’s boat without treatment, were discovered adrift at sea Friday, the latest horror in the unabated flow of migrants fleeing instability in Libya.
Italian ships have picked up 10,000 people, many of them refugees of war and persecution, over the past week, an unprecedented number in such a short period. The influx is putting pressure on Italy’s shelter system and raising calls for a better response to the emergency.
Friday’s rescue comes after the feared drowning of more than 400 migrants in two shipwrecks in the past week, bringing to more than 900 the number of people who have died or gone missing so far this year trying to make the perilous crossing — 10 times higher than over the corresponding period last year.
In Washington, U.S. President Barack Obama pledged more intense co-operation with Italy on threats coming from the instability in Libya, which has contributed to the influx of migrants across the Mediterranean.
Libya, the closest point in North Africa to Italy, is a transit point for migrants hoping to reach Europe by sea.
After a meeting with the visiting Italian prime minister, Obama promised to “work together even more intensively to encourage cooperation on threats coming from Libya,” including the growing presence of the Islamic State militant group.
Matteo Renzi, the prime minister, said he expected to see results of the commitment in the coming weeks. “It has to do with the justice and the dignity of mankind,” he said.
Among the burn victims rescued Friday after two days adrift on a half-deflated dinghy was a 6-month-old baby.
They were among 70 migrants rescued and transported to the Italian island of Lampedusa. One of the burn victims, a woman, died en route.
The UN refugee agency said the explosion occurred at a holding centre run by smugglers who demand thousands of dollars for a place on unseaworthy boats making the journey across the Mediterranean.
A spokeswoman in Italy for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Barbara Molinario, said several peo- ple died after the gas cylinder exploded, but “the traffickers would not allow them to leave and reach the hospital, so they did not get treatment for a few days. And then they were put on a boat.”
“This latest horrific incident involving human smugglers shows the urgent need to create safe legal alternatives so that refugees don’t need to put their lives at risk in this way,” said Molinario.
Prosecutors in Sicily, meanwhile, were investigating 15 Muslim migrants who are alleged to have thrown 12 Christian migrants overboard in a religious dispute. Survivors, who police said resisted being thrown overboard in part by holding onto each other, reported the incident after being rescued.
The Organization for International Migration said the rate of migrant and refugee deaths this year is 10 times higher than in 2014, even though the number of those who made it across safely is about the same. The agency put arrivals so far this year in Italy through Thursday at 21,191. That compares with 26,644 for the first four months of last year.
Greece, the EU’s second-biggest gateway for migrants after Italy, appealed to its European Union partners Friday for more help in policing its sea borders as immigrants in- creasingly make dangerous journeys to escape war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.
Fighting in Libya has escalated to its worst levels since the 2011civil war that ended with the overthrow and killing of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Rebel groups that fought against him kept their weapons and militias mushroomed in number.
The country now has rival governments, an internationally recognized one in the eastern city of Tobruk and an Islamist-backed one in the capital, Tripoli. The two sides have been negotiating in Morocco to end the fighting.