Again, hundreds of refugees drowned near Lampedusa?

This video about the issue of immigration to the Italian island of Lampedusa is aimed at sensibilising people to the plight of African immigrants to Europe.

Translated from NOS TV in the Netherlands:

Fear of many deaths in Lampedusa

Update: Monday, May 12, 2014, 15:37

In the Mediterranean a boat has capsized with probably about 400 refugees on board. It is feared that many refugees have drowned. …

The Italian Coast Guard has rescued about 240 refugees from the sea so far. Twenty dead bodies have been recovered. …

The boat capsized when it was en route from Libya to the Italian island of Lampedusa. Yesterday there [Libya] 40 boat people drowned already. In October 2013 more than 300 migrants died when their boat capsized [near Lampedusa].

According to the Times of Malta, the Italian navy task force in the Mediterranean is called the Mare Nostrum task force. A name with unpleasant echos from the Roman empire, and the twentieth century attempts by Mussolini’s fascists to “revive the Roman empire” and its “Mare Nostro” with war in Libya, Albania, Greece and elsewhere.

ITV reports already forty dead bodies recovered. One should fear the death toll will still be much higher.

The Mediterranean Has Become the Grave of Migrants: here.

Death toll of migrants seeking to enter Europe via Mediterranean worsens: here.

In the last three weeks, more than 150 refugees have died in the Mediterranean in an attempt to find asylum. On May 5, 22 died off the coast of the Greek island of Samos in the Aegean when their boat capsized; 10 others are still missing: here.

On November 1, the Italian government officially ended the naval operation Mare Nostrum, which has retrieved more than 100,000 refugees from the Mediterranean Sea in the course of the past year. The termination is a deliberate decision of the European Union to permit thousands of refugees to die at sea in order to deter others from trying to set foot on European shores: here.

UN: REFUGEES ESCAPING VIA SEA “A surge of people, many of them fleeing war, are risking their lives to find sanctuary by sea, the United Nations refugee agency said Tuesday, rebuking governments that sought to keep out foreigners looking for asylum. Since the beginning of this year, at least 348,000 people have crossed seas — or died trying — the agency said in a report, with data compiled from coastal authorities around the world. Nearly two-thirds of the refugees sailed across the Mediterranean en route to Europe, which the agency said was a marked increase from previous years.” [NYT]

MORE THAN 200 MIGRANTS DIED ATTEMPTING TO CROSS THE MEDITERRANEAN The United Nation’s refugee agency said at least 203 migrants had been “swallowed by the waves” while attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea via smugglers’ boats. [USA Today]

AID groups and the UN refugee agency blamed the European Union today for scaling down Mediterranean rescue operations after over 300 would-be migrants perished at sea. They had tried to cross the freezing cold sea in open, rubber boats and were reported missing today by survivors: here.

THIS week the UN announced that 300 migrants had drowned after being forced into unseaworthy boats in a desperate attempt to escape the wars and poverty of North Africa by attempting the dangerous sea crossing to Italy. This is just the latest of the crimes of mass murder in the Mediterranean of desperate migrants fleeing the wars and destabilisation of the region by world imperialism in its violent quest for control: here.