More than 400 migrants seeking to travel to Italy on two vessels are feared drowned after going missing days ago in the Mediterranean, a UN official said on Sunday.
As Italy began the evacuation from Lampedusa of the 3,000 Tunisians who have reached the island since the collapse of the Tunisian government in January, another 362 migrants arrived in leaking vessels by midday on Sunday.
However, two boats that reportedly set out from Libya on March 22 and March 25, one carrying 335 Eritreans and the other 68 Eritreans and Ethiopians, have disappeared.
“We are urging the coastguard to carry on searching since even after 20 days at sea, some people can survive,” said Laura Boldrini, a UN spokeswoman.
The head of an asylum seekers’ organization said he had last spoken to migrants on board the smaller boat, an inflatable, by satellite phone on March 26 before the line went dead.
“I have, meanwhile, had no contact with the larger boat, but family members of those on board have called us from Canada, Sweden and Switzerland to tell us they left,” Father Mose Zerai said.
The number reportedly on board the inflatable matches the 68 corpses pulled out of the Mediterranean last week and taken to Tripoli, according to Catholic church workers in the Libyan capital.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not