Italian
police said on Wednesday they had busted an Eritrean trafficking ring accused
of smuggling migrants into Europe on perilous Mediterranean boat crossings,
including one in which 244 people died. Police arrested ten
Eritreans after an investigation uncovered "existence of a
transnational organization, operating in Italy, Libya, Eritrea, and
other North-African states," according to a statement released by
police in Catania, Sicily, where the investigation was launched in May. The
group organized boat departures from Libya to Italy,
with "footsoldiers" in the Lazio and Lombardy regions who
provided "logistical support to migrants and smugglers...to help them
from Sicily to Italy, then on to other countries in Europe," Antontio
Salvago of Catania police told AFP. Nine of those taken into custody were arrested
on November 25th in Italy, while the tenth - named as Measho Tesfamariam
and accused of being one of the ringleaders - was arrested on Tuesday in
Germany. The group is accused of organizing 23 trips from Libya to Italy
between May and September, while Tesfamariam is alleged to have personally
overseen in Libya the departure of an overcrowded vessel which sank off
the North African coast between June 27th and 28th, killing all 224 people
on board. During a raid in Catania, police also arrested an 11th Eritrean
accused of harbouring nine Somalians, eight of whom were minors, in a
small locked room. Source (The
Local)
Thursday, December 4, 2014
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