Escape A Life Driven By Penury
To escape a life driven by penury and extreme hardship, thousands of African migrants, each year, try to enter European Union, across rough seas, to Italy in ill-equipped dinghy boats. More often than not, these crudely built boats capsize, or they simply get stranded, when they wait for passing cargo vessels, or fishing boats to come to their rescue. The 140 African migrants who were rescued by a Turkish cargo vessel of the Italian island of Lampedusa, were pleading their case for four full days. Italy thought that the rescued area came under the jurisdiction of Malta, and therefore Malta should take them in. Eventually, Italy changed course, as in deference to the wishes of the European Union’s President they took the migrants in, ending a 96 hours’ drama of suspense and anguish.