Two boats carrying 290 illegal immigrants intercepted in Italy
Web posted at: 8/24/2008 7:22:6
Source ::: AFP

ROME • Two boats carrying 290 illegal immigrants were intercepted early yesterday off Italy’s coast, bringing the number of arrivals to nearly 1,200 over the past three days, police in Sicily said.

A fishing boat with 245 people, including 29 women and six children, from the African nation of Eritrea, a former Italian colony, was escorted to Syracuse on the east coast of Sicily, police in the city of Palermo said.

Another boat with 45 would-be immigrants was rescued off of Italy’s southern-most island, Lampedusa, where a processing centre designed for 850 people has become overcrowded with 1,500 occupants, an official Federico Miragliotta said.

The number of migrants held at the Lampedusa centre, where people usually stay for about 72 hours before being transferred, reached a peak of 1,700 on July 31.

The latest arrivals were to be transferred to other centres in Italy later yesterday, Miragliotta said by phone, adding that “the situation is calm.â€