Italy island sees wave of migrants
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/08/25/italy.immigration.reut/
...excerpt...
ROME, Italy (Reuters) -- Two-hundred and seventy-five illegal immigrants have landed on the small southern Italian island of Lampedusa, police said, the largest ever to arrive there on a single vessel.
The latest in a wave of summer arrivals reached shore on Tuesday a day before Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi flies to Libya to discuss ways of stemming illegal migration and cracking down on human trafficking with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
It was not immediately clear from where the latest batch of immigrants had come but in the past many of them have left on boats from north Africa.
Police on the island south of Sicily said the immigrants arrived on a 20-meter-long (yard) fishing boat and were taken to a processing center there.
About 250 other illegal immigrants are already at the center waiting to be transferred to the mainland while their cases are reviewed. Most are sent back home.
Italy believes many illegal immigrants set sail from Libya and is seeking a deal with Tripoli to try to stem the flow.
Hmmmm, here is a companion article to the one you posted about Italy. This one is about Spain (all male migrants...)
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Police stop more than 200 migrants off Spain
swissinfo August 25, 2004 4:00 PM
MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish security forces have arrested more than 200 Moroccans illegally trying to enter Spain from its south coast, officials say.
Civil Guards picked up 134 migrants packed in two inflatable boats overnight, a government spokesman in the southern province of Almeria said.
Another 100 people were stopped in three boats off the coast of the neighbouring province of Granada.
"There are 100 people, all male and all Moroccan, including several minors, in police custody in Motril waiting to be repatriated," said a spokeswoman for the Red Cross, which attended the would-be immigrants in Granada.
Good weather has encouraged waves of Moroccans and Africans from south of the Sahara to attempt to reach the coast of mainland Spain and the Spanish Canary Islands [DLN Note to TMers: the Islands where a few volcanoes are...) off the west coast of Morocco in recent weeks.
The Red Cross spokeswoman said her organisation had attended 575 people in August in the province of Granada alone, and more than 1,500 so far this year.
"That's double the numbers at the same time last year," she said.
The Socialist government said recently it was considering granting residence permits to thousands of immigrants already in Spain illegally if they could prove they had jobs.
The main opposition party says such a move would serve as an incentive for many more people to enter Spain illegally.
Unions estimate at least half a million people now working in Spain illegally could be eligible for legalisation if the new measures take effect.
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5170333