Summer in the Mediterranean

As the weather warms up and the waves calm down, thousands of would-be immigrants are setting sail for Europe from African shores says The Spiegel Online:

The situation is hardly a new one. For the past several years, the numbers of those willing to risk the dangerous crossing from northern Africa rises right along with the temperature. The Italian Interior Ministry estimates that 16,500 illegal immigrants tried to reach Italian shores from Libya in 2007. The immigrants arrive in Libya from central Africa and from there are ferried to European shores, often by organized crime groups, in rickety, overcrowded boats. Most are trying to escape dire poverty at home. Many give up everything for the journey (more...) in the hopes that, once they arrive in Europe, they will be able to support their families from afar.

Already this month, Italy and Malta have fished dozens out of the Mediterranean. On June 6, Sicilian fishermen saved 27 refugees after their boat flipped. Ten others drowned. Just a day later, another ship heading north from the African coast capsized, reportedly killing 150. Last Friday, Italian boaters found 26 Africans hanging on to tuna cages in the Mediterranean after their boat sank.

"Whenever it is windy, you find corpses on the beach," Paul Pace, head of a Jesuit aid organization on Malta, told Süddeutsche Zeitung this week. "And it is often very windy. The small boats used by the refugees simply don't hold up in storms."

Over on Africa's west coasts, things aren't much better. So far in June, 569 people have been detained while trying to illegally reach the Canary Islands, located just off the Moroccan coast, a Spanish Interior Ministry official told the AP last week. In 2006, the total for the year was over 30,000, though the number declined in 2007. On Saturday night, dozens of would be refugees stormed the Spanish enclave of Melilla, located on the African mainland, and 100 were arrested.