More than 200 migrants have been rescued from an overcrowded boat at risk of sinking in rough waters in the Mediterranean Sea, the Italian navy said Thursday.
Italian navy rescues 233 migrants from Mediterranean boat – CNN.com
From the article:
The boat, which measured only 10 meters (33 feet) long, was carrying 233 people without life jackets, the navy statement said.[…]
The migrants, from Eritrea, Nigeria, Somalia, Pakistan, Zambia and Mali, were all moved safely, the statement said.
After being transferred to a frigate, the migrants will be taken to the port of Augusta, on the Italian island of Sicily, where they are expected to arrive Thursday evening, it said.
What the article doesn’t mention is that once these migrants arrive in Italy, they will be met with conditions like the ones described here, including hosing in ice cold temperature and other torture practices.
Last week, nine immigrants sew their mouths shut to demand release. From the article:
Nine illegal immigrants detained in Italy have stitched their lips together with thread from their bedsheets in a protest to demand their release from what they say are intolerable living conditions.
The protest, which started at a centre near Rome on Saturday, came days after video emerged of immigrants at another camp standing naked in the cold to be sprayed for scabies. It drew new calls for the closure of detention centres and for changes to immigration laws.
Using a needle improvised from a cigarette lighter, four Tunisians each made a single stitch to join their lips in the middle, Filiberto Zaratti, a lawmaker who visited the protesters, told Reuters.
Five Moroccans later imitated the gesture, according to the centre’s manager, speaking on Italian television. The protesters asked to be let out of the centre, the manager said.
The migrants have now allowed medical personnel to remove the stitches due to health risk associated with hunger strike but other protests are currently spreading across Italy due to the appalling human rights violations of undocumented migrants in detention centers.
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