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LAMPEDUSA — Italy yesterday mourned the 300 African asylum-seekers feared dead in the worst ever Mediterranean refugee disaster, as the government appealed for Europe to stem the influx of migrants.As the grim search for bodies off the island of Lampedusa continued, an emotional Pope Francis said yesterday should be “a day of tears” for a “savage world” that ignored the plight of refugees.

Emergency services on the remote island — Italy’s southernmost point — said they had recovered 111 bodies so far and rescued 155 survivors from a boat with an estimated 450 to 500 people on board.

Divers who explored the wreck spoke of seeing dozens of bodies in and around the ship and rescuers said more bodies may have been swept further out to sea by strong currents.

Divers were unable to descend to the wreck yesterday because of choppy conditions but coast guard vessels scoured the surface for more corpses.

“After these deaths, we are expecting something to change. Things cannot stay the same,” the mayor of Lampedusa, Giusi Nicolini, told reporters.

“The future of Lampedusa is directly linked to policies on immigration and asylum,” she said.
Interior Minister Angelino Alfano appealed for greater European assistance in patrolling Italy’s southern maritime border and more action in Africa to stem the flow of perilous refugee crossings.

“This sea is the border between Africa and Europe, not between Africa and Sicily,” he said during a visit to the island, adding that he would meet the EU’s Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem in Brussels next week to discuss the issue.

“This is not just an Italian problem,” he said.
Alfano also said the EU’s Dublin regulation that forces asylum-seekers to remain in the European country where they first arrive “puts too large a burden” on southern European states like Italy.

The badly overcrowded 20-metre vessel caught fire, capsized and sank on Thursday just a few hundred metres from Lampedusa, as its terrified passengers jumped into the sea. The migrants were Eritreans, Ghanians and Somalis and their boat had departed from the Libyan port of Misrata. A suspected Tunisian crew member has been detained as prosecutors investigated the tragedy.

Flags flew at half mast across Italy and schools held a minute of silence for the victims while President Giorgio Napolitano has called for the abolition of a law against facilitating illegal immigration that penalises potential rescuers. Locals on the island, which is closer to North Africa than to Italy and has a population of just 6 000, fought back tears as they spoke of the desperate rush to save drowning immigrants.

“The hardest thing was seeing the bodies of the children. They had no chance,” said local doctor Pietro Bartolo, who said in 20 years on the island he had “never seen a human tragedy like this”.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s navy has rescued 70 would-be illegal immigrants drifting on the high seas in the country’s first detected case of people-smuggling since Australia tightened restrictions on asylum-seekers, officials said yesterday.

A naval craft picked up the Sri Lankans, including 17 women and 14 children, who had been drifting for days off the island’s southwest coast following engine trouble in their fishing trawler, a naval official said.

Navy spokesman Kosala Warnakulasuriya confirmed the rescue mounted on Thursday and said investigations were underway. — AFP.