Word: lampedusa
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Every Mediterranean seaside destination has its own particular appeal: the soft sands of Mykonos, cliffside views in Portofino, non-stop nightlife in St. Tropez. The tiny island of Lampedusa, the southernmost dot on Italy's map, is prized above all for the crystal clarity of its turquoise waters. But this same stretch of Mediterranean is rapidly acquiring a much darker notoriety. Once again this summer, as both Italian and foreign sun-lovers soak up their beach holidays, boatloads of would-be immigrants from North Africa have been aiming for Lampedusa's coastline in a desperate attempt to reach European shores...
...Getting out of Libya - and Africa as a whole - could get harder still. More than 11,000 illegal African immigrants have arrived in Sicily so far this year. The vast majority set off from the Libyan ports of Zlitan and Zuwarah, and land on the tiny Sicilian island of Lampedusa, just 120 km from the north African coast. Almost 1,800 arrived there just last week. But each year hundreds die in attempted crossings when their rickety fishing boats sink in the Mediterranean swells. Italy has begun an unprecedented crackdown on the new arrivals, who have become a hot political...
...with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi for talks on ways to stop illegal immigrants from Africa using Libya as a launch pad to reach Italy . A day earlier, a boat believed to have departed from Libya and carrying 275 migrants was intercepted off the coast of the Sicilian island of Lampedusa . Polio Resurgent AFRICA The World Health Organization warned of the threat of a polio epidemic as the virus returned to two countries where it had previously been eradicated. Guinea and Mali brought to 12 the total of formerly polio-free nations that have seen new cases of the disease since...
...lies low with the other Somalis who warn him that Libyan police are getting more violent toward black-skinned Africans. It will be more than three months, and several more bus trips back and forth to Zlitan, before he finally secures a passage to Europe. FROM ZLITAN TO LAMPEDUSA The trip to Italy costs $800 and Abdi Salan is told he'll be on the next boat. But instead, he is hurried into a warehouse where dozens of other would-be immigrants are camped out. One of them is a 24-year-old Somali named Ismail, who has traveled...
...official. "But we don't have much to give them in exchange." The slim number of immigrants European countries are willing to admit they need still doesn't approach the number of those willing to risk life and limb to get to Europe. On the Italian island of Lampedusa, where hundreds of desperate immigrants have washed ashore in recent years, finance police commander Romeo Cavallin knows there's no easy fix. "As long as there's misery on the other shoreline," he says, "they'll keep coming...