300 missing off Italian coast after boat sinks (UPDATES) (VIDEO)
Tunisian would-be immigrants who were evacuated from the Italian island of Lampedusa to a reception center in Manduria in the Puglia region, jump over the fence to escape from the camp on April 1, 2011. The Italian government has prepared a plan to accommodate 10,000 migrants on a temporary basis, before repatriating them to Tunisia.
Rescuers were searching Wednesday for 300 migrants whose boat capsized the Mediterranean Sea as they attempted to reach Italy from Libya, in what is feared to be one of the Mediterranean's worst such disasters.
The boat, believed to have set off from Libya carrying about 350 people from Somalia, Eritrea, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Sudan, Chad and Ivory Coast, sank about 39 miles west off the island of Lampedusa in Maltese waters, the Italian Coast Guard said.
At least 50 of the passengers had been rescued and taken to Lampedusa, according to the New York Times.
Several of those rescued reportedly said in Italian TV interviews that they had come from the western Libyan port city of Zuwarah, near the Tunisian border.
The Guardian quoted a man identified as Peter Ugo, 28, from Cameroon, as saying the boat had set off from Libya on Monday. He said he had been fleeing from harassment by opponents of the Gaddafi regime.
"The war is too much", he reportedly said. "They steal our property, steal our money every day. They try to threaten us to leave [Libya] or they will kill us. Or they give us guns to fight against Gaddafi. We were not able to face the fight."
About 22,000 migrants have arrived on Lampedusa since January, mostly from Tunisia. Last month, Jodi Hilton reported for GlobalPost on how Lampedusa locals were coping with the influx.
Italy shipped more than 2,000 migrants to detention camps on its mainland last Thursday. Those remaining at the island's port of Manduria have built themselves a tent camp from plastic sheets.
The conditions at the camp have been severely criticized by NGOs — particularly Doctors Without Borders, the Red Cross, and Amnesty International — as a nightmare unfit for human existence, according to the Guardian.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi reportedly held talks on the crisis with the Tunisian government Monday. "We are working on the possibility of repatriation," Berlusconi said in the capital city, Tunis, Deutsche Welle reported. "There's a willingness on our part and that of the Tunis government to do this in a civilized manner."
Berlusconi has threatened to allow a wave of immigrants from North Africa loose into Europe, citing a reluctance by fellow European Union member countries to help deal with the influx.
And Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, meanwhile, lamented the "total refusal to cooperate" by Italy's neighbors and the EU, and warned that Rome may make it easier for immigrants to reach France and Germany.
Italy was considering giving migrants temporary permits and setting up centers near Italy's borders so they can easily cross into other countries, Maroni and Berlusconi said.
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