ROME: Italy’s coast guard said Sunday two migrants died after they were rescued along with more than 30 others in the Mediterranean off the eastern coast of Sicily.
The coast guard said it received a distress call late Saturday from a boat located about 17 miles southeast of Syracuse carrying Syrian, Egyptian and Bangladeshi migrants.
Search and rescue operations began after the coast guard dispatched a patrol boat and plane to the area, but “the occupants of the vessel ended up in the water as the patrol boat approached,” it said in a statement.
Although 34 people were recovered from the water, put onto the patrol boat and transferred to Syracuse’s port, one died upon arrival and another after reaching the hospital.
“The search at sea for a missing person who was on board the vessel, which later sank, is currently under way,” it said.
The coast guard said it was investigating how the migrants ended in the water as the boat approached.
At least 384 migrants died in the first quarter of this year crossing by sea via the central Mediterranean route toward Italy and Malta, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Two migrants dead after rescue at sea: Italian coast guard
https://arab.news/zdycg
Two migrants dead after rescue at sea: Italian coast guard
Mali, Burkina say restricting entry for US nationals in reciprocal move
- Both countries said they are applying the same measures on American nationals as imposed on them
ABIDJAN: Mali and Burkina Faso have announced travel restrictions on American nationals in a tit-for-tat move after the US included both African countries on a no-entry list.
In statements issued separately by both countries’ foreign ministries and seen Wednesday by AFP, they said they were imposing “equivalent measures” on US citizens, after President Donald Trump expanded a travel ban to nearly 40 countries this month, based solely on nationality.
That list included Syrian citizens, as well as Palestinian Authority passport holders, and nationals of some of Africa’s poorest countries including also Niger, Sierra Leone and South Sudan.
The White House said it was banning foreigners who “intend to threaten” Americans.
Burkina Faso’s foreign ministry said in the statement that it was applying “equivalent visa measures” on Americans, while Mali said it was, “with immediate effect,” applying “the same conditions and requirements on American nationals that the American authorities have imposed on Malian citizens entering the United States.”
It voiced its “regret” that the United States had made “such an important decision without the slightest prior consultation.”
The two sub-Saharan countries, both run by military juntas, are members of a confederation that also includes Niger.
Niger has not officially announced any counter-measures to the US travel ban, but the country’s news agency, citing a diplomatic source, said last week that such measures had been decided.
In his December 17 announcement, Trump also imposed partial travel restrictions on citizens of other African countries including the most populous, Nigeria, as well as Ivory Coast and Senegal, which qualified for the football World Cup to be played next year in the United States as well as Canada and Mexico.
