{"id":7387,"date":"2014-03-20T13:27:03","date_gmt":"2014-03-20T13:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=7387"},"modified":"2014-03-20T13:27:25","modified_gmt":"2014-03-20T13:27:25","slug":"more-than-2000-migrants-rescued-off-italy-in-48-hours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=7387","title":{"rendered":"More than 2,000 migrants rescued off Italy in 48 hours"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BBC\"<\/a>Italian authorities say they have rescued more than 2,000 illegal migrants, many from North Africa, off Sicily’s coast in the past 48 hours.<\/p>\n

The announcement came a day after some 500 people forced their way into Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla.<\/p>\n

In response, the Spanish government has doubled the number of security forces there.<\/p>\n

Every year, thousands of migrants try to reach Europe via Spain and Italy.<\/p>\n

Many of those making the dangerous journey come from Eritrea and Somalia.<\/p>\n

But in the past year the numbers from Syria have also soared because of the civil war there.<\/p>\n

‘Good sailing weather’<\/b><\/p>\n

Italian authorities said the migrants arrived on 13 overcrowded boats.<\/p>\n

Each of them was packed with men, women and children from countries including Eritrea and Syria, the BBC’s Alan Johnston, in Rome, reports.<\/p>\n

Most were picked up by Italian navy and coastguard crews, but two private vessels also got involved in the wide-ranging rescue effort in waters south of Sicily.<\/p>\n

The people traffickers who organise the dangerous sea crossings from places like the ports of Libya, seem to have been taking advantage of a spell of good, calm sailing weather, a BBC correspondent says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Spain has increased police presence in Melilla to 150 officers, Reuters reports.<\/p>\n

The move follows the biggest attempt by migrants to storm the enclave’s 12km (7.5-mile) security fence in almost a decade.<\/p>\n

Together with a second Spanish enclave, Ceuta, Melilla represents the EU’s only land border with Africa.<\/p>\n

Both Spain and Italy have repeatedly called for help from other EU states to deal with the migrant influx.<\/p>\n

Latest figures from the European Union’s border control agency show more than 20,000 people tried to reach Italian shores in 2013.<\/p>\n

This is thought to account for almost half of the EU’s illegal migration.<\/p>\n

Last October more than 400 people drowned in two shipwrecks near the island of Lampedusa, the closest Italian territory to North Africa.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Italian authorities say they have rescued more than 2,000 illegal migrants, many from North Africa, off Sicily’s coast in the past 48 hours. The announcement came a day after some 500 people forced their way into Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla. In response, the Spanish government has doubled the number of security forces there. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":7390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[38,14],"class_list":["post-7387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-palaver-newspaper","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}