TRAGEDY WAS narrowly averted early yesterday morning when a ship carrying an estimated 500 migrants ran aground just off the Italian Mediterranean island of Lampedusa.
The ship, which is believed to have sailed from Libya and was carry mainly sub-Saharan Africans, went out of control after its steering stopped working just as it came into port. Despite a rough sea, there was remarkably no loss of life.
Three Italian police officers who had taken over the boat managed to ram it up on to the rocks in shallow water. At that point, an ad-hoc rescue operation saw people make their way to land, some aided by a rope. Others simply jumped into the water and waded the short distance to the shore.
Despite the seas and the fact the rescue took place in the dark, police reported no loss of life, with only some minor injuries.
With the warmer weather returning, the traffic in boat people to Lampedusa increased over the weekend. Half an hour before the near-miss incident, another boat, carrying 800 mainly sub-Saharan Africans, had docked in Lampedusa. Since the beginning of this year, more than 30,000 mainly African immigrants have landed in Lampedusa.
In a reference to the phenomenon of boat people, Pope Benedict XVI, in Venice yesterday on a pastoral visit, said Christians today were called on to “reaffirm an ancient spiritual unity” in the face of “new geopolitical phenomena”, such as immigration.
PADDY AGNEW