Divers in Italy recovered 32 more bodies on Sunday after a shipwreck in which more than 300 African refugees are feared to have died, as a government minister called for an easing of immigration rules.
The death toll now stands at 143, while 155 others have been rescued after their boat caught fire and sank off the remote island of Lampedusa on Thursday, but scores more are still missing.
Integration minister Cecile Kyenge was on the dock as the corpses were brought to shore and a representative of Pope Francis blessed each one. ‘The law on immigration cannot be punitive,’ said Kyenge, who has faced a torrent of racist abuse as Italy’s first black minister.
The current law considers all irregular migrants suspects in the crime of ‘clandestinity’ and punishes anyone accused of facilitating landings. ‘The migratory flux has fundamentally changed. We have to understand it and change our laws,’ she said, adding that she was planning to triple the available accommodation in asylum centres to 24,000 bed spaces because of the growing influx.
‘We cannot accept these tragedies again,’ she said. Prime Minister Enrico Letta meanwhile said EU Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso will visit the island on Wednesday and blamed Libya for the growing influx of asylum seekers in Italy.
In an interview with news channel SkyTG24, Letta said Libya — where the shipwrecked boat departed from — should adopt ‘stringent’ measures to stop the migrant boats from leaving its shores.
‘Our problem today is called Libya,’ he said. Letta also called for more European assistance to cope with the influx, saying: ‘Italy cannot be the first country to have everything on its shoulders.’ Italy has requested that the refugee issue be put on the agenda of a meeting of European interior ministers in Luxembourg on Tuesday and of a summit of EU leaders in Brussels at the end of the month.
The death toll now stands at 143, while 155 others have been rescued after their boat caught fire and sank off the remote island of Lampedusa on Thursday, but scores more are still missing.
Integration minister Cecile Kyenge was on the dock as the corpses were brought to shore and a representative of Pope Francis blessed each one. ‘The law on immigration cannot be punitive,’ said Kyenge, who has faced a torrent of racist abuse as Italy’s first black minister.
The current law considers all irregular migrants suspects in the crime of ‘clandestinity’ and punishes anyone accused of facilitating landings. ‘The migratory flux has fundamentally changed. We have to understand it and change our laws,’ she said, adding that she was planning to triple the available accommodation in asylum centres to 24,000 bed spaces because of the growing influx.
‘We cannot accept these tragedies again,’ she said. Prime Minister Enrico Letta meanwhile said EU Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso will visit the island on Wednesday and blamed Libya for the growing influx of asylum seekers in Italy.
In an interview with news channel SkyTG24, Letta said Libya — where the shipwrecked boat departed from — should adopt ‘stringent’ measures to stop the migrant boats from leaving its shores.
‘Our problem today is called Libya,’ he said. Letta also called for more European assistance to cope with the influx, saying: ‘Italy cannot be the first country to have everything on its shoulders.’ Italy has requested that the refugee issue be put on the agenda of a meeting of European interior ministers in Luxembourg on Tuesday and of a summit of EU leaders in Brussels at the end of the month.