350 migrants land in Sicily, 6 traffickers held

Rome, June 27 (IANS/AKI) Police in Sicily arrested a Nigerian, a Bangladeshi and a Gambian accused of people trafficking after a boat with 267 migrants on board arrived at the port of Pozzallo. Police also held three Ukraians after 100 migrants landed in eastern Sicily.

The 25-year-old Nigerian, the 18-year-old Bangladeshi and the 20-year-old Gambian were identified by migrants about the boat, which docked in Pozzallo on Sunday. Passengers aboard the boat included pregnant women and minors, according to port officials.

The migrants were rescued on Monday from a rubber dinghy and a fishing boat in the Mediterranean that were beginning to take on water.

The 100 Iranian, Pakistani and Syrian migrants arrived on the eastern Sicilian coast near the port city of Siracusa on Monday. Italian police later arrested four Ukrainians aboard a boat heading for Greece, who are suspected of trafficking the migrants.

Earlier on Monday, an Irish ship saved 712 migrants off the Libyan coast, some 40 km northwest of Tripoli, with no loss of life, the Irish Defence Ministry said. Fourteen pregnant women and four newborns were among the migrants rescued, according to the ministry.

The influx of migrants heading for Europe continues unabated during the warmer summer months and around 84,000 migrants landed this year through 21 June, 85 per cent of them in Italy, according to UN's International Organization for Migration.

Over 2,100 people perished on the journey during this period, of whom over 2,010 died on the treacherous route from Libya to Italy, according to the IOM.

--IANS/AKI

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