Number of Migrants Trying to Reach Italy Surges

Sunday June 8, 2014

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(ROME) -- In Italy, the arrival of boatloads of asylum-seekers is a sign that summer, with its calm seas, has arrived.

In the last 24 hours, more than 2,500 migrants were rescued in the Mediterranean as their rickety boats headed toward the southern Italian island of Lampedusa.

An amphibious transport dock ship picked up most of them, including more than 200 women and 160 children.

Last fall, Italy launched a costly naval operation called Mare Nostrum to cope with the surging number of desperate people escaping conflict in Syria and Somalia, among other nations.

Since then, it’s issued a string of angry appeals to the European Union for financial and technical help to cope with the rising numbers of migrants. So far, it’s fallen on deaf ears.

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