ON Wednesday afternoon of last week, 25 Tunisian boat people" set out from the port of Sfax, heading north on a voyage of hope intended to take them and their rickety 35 foot motor boat to Sicily. Despite high winds and rough seas, they managed to cross the Mediterranean, arriving 12 hours later just off the island of Lampedusa, south of Sicily.
At that point, 500 yards short of land, the Tunisians opted to sink their boat. Given the rough sea, an improvised beach landing would have been difficult if not impossible, and in the meantime the motor boat's presence might have attracted the unwelcome attention of naval coast guards who would have arrested the boat people and sent them all back to Tunisia.
Perhaps, in their desperation and in the darkness of a wild night, the Tunisians underestimated the rough sea. The fact is that only five of the 25 managed to swim to the coast, just 500 yards away. The other 20 are officially missing, presumed drowned.
All the Tunisians are alleged to have paid $600 each far the privilege.
By grim coincidence, a similar tragedy was taking place at almost exactly the same time, off the Pugilia coast, near Bari.
In this case, the boat people were of Sri Lankan origin and were on what they hoped would be the final stages of a difficult peregrination that would take them to Germany.
The Sri Lankans had set out from the Croat port of Dubrovnik, in the farmer Yugoslavia, and were still some long way off the Italian coastline when their boat began to sink. Two rubber lifeboats were launched, but the boat's Italian captain and ship's mate made off in one of the lifeboats, leaving 20 Sri Lankans to fight for space in a rubber dinghy designed for eight.
In the end, 14 of the 20 managed to cram into the lifeboat, but not without a desperate fight that left the other six to drown. Among those who died were a newly engaged couple, three women and one man. One of the survivors, 23 year old Annud told reporters.
We swam fast, our compatriots no. . . I saw them all when we jumped into the water and then there was a great deal of pushing and shoving and then in the dark, from the lifeboat I heard their desperate screams.
The boat's skipper and mate Silvano de Micheli and Libero Gambo, made land safely but within 24 hours had been identified and arrested on murder and manslaughter charges.
On the same day as these boat people tragedies, 32 year old Ismalia Dialla from French Guinea was shot dead in Sant Antimo, close to Naples. Dialla, a qualified electrician had worked as a night watchman since coming to Italy as an illegal immigrant one year ago.
In an attempt to legalise his status earlier this year, he had made a deal with a Neapolitan builder, Nicala Giaccia. The seam, at a cost of nearly £1,000 to Diallo, required Signore Giaccio to declare that Diallo worked for him.
Diallo paid his money, but his legal work papers never arrived.
Fed up with his miserable existence in Italy, Diallo decided to return home to French Guinea. Before doing so, however, he approached Mr Giaccio for his £1,000 back. According to an eye witness, all that Diallo got for a response was a fatal bullet to the stomach. Mr Giaccio is now in prison charged with murder.
The above three stories, all on the same day last week, represent nothing new. Indeed, in a post electoral week when much attention was focused on the first moves of the prime minister elect, Ramana Pradi, these further grim tales of Italy's immigrant emergency received only limited attention.
The Interior Ministry last week estimated that there were ore than 820,000 legally registered, non EU migrant workers living in Italy in 1995. Take into account illegal immigrants, and that figure could probably be doubled.
No Italian government has ever produced a coherent, complex and logical policy for dealing with illegal immigrants while both charity organisations and police forces regularly decry the lack of infrastructures to cope with the influx.
Not for nothing, the Bishop of Lecce, Francesco Ruppi, last week called on Prof Prodi to implement "a serious immigration policy". Over to you. Prof.