Islam - Current Day > 60 Migrants, including Children Drown on Italian Coast; Archbishop calls Muslim Invasion of Europe what it is

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At least 60 migrants including a tiny baby dead after overloaded boat

breaks apart in a storm off coast of Italy

Katie Davis, The Sun

Published: 11:35, 26 Feb 2023, Updated: 15:55, 26 Feb 2023

AT least 60 migrants including a baby have died after their crowded wooden boat broke apart in a storm off the coast of Italy.

The overloaded vessel was destroyed as it crashed into rocky reefs on Sunday, with children among the victims.

At least 60 migrants have died after their overloaded boat fell apartCredit: Twitter/FrancoScarsell2/

A chunk of the boat, along with piles of splintered wood, on the beach at Steccato di Cutro.

Credit: Twitter/FrancoScarsell2/

At least 60 bodies have so far been recovered along the shore, according to local media. Among those who drowned was a baby who was just a few months old, Italian news agency AGI reports.

Some 81 survivors have been pulled from the water, with 22 rushed to hospital.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said that the migrants were crowded into a 66ft long boat in adverse weather conditions.

The Mediterranean can be quite deadly in the winter months.

It is understood the boat left from Izmir, Turkey, three or four days ago with around 50 migrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia on board.

Coast guard officials said the boat hit rocks "a few metres from the shore".

A chunk of the boat, along with piles of splintered wood, littered the beach at Steccato di Cutro, part of Calabria's coastline along the Ionian sea.

Some of the survivors tried to keep warm, wrapped in what appeared to be colorful blankets or sheets.

A helicopter and motorboats were deployed in search efforts, including vessels from state firefighters and border police.

A Coast Guard motorboat rescued two men suffering from hypothermia and recovered the body of a boy in the rough seas, it said in a statement.

Firefighter boats, including rescue divers, recovered 28 bodies, including three pulled by a strong current far away from the wreckage.

Meloni said: "It's inhumane to exchange the lives of men, women and children for the price of a ticket paid by them in the false prospect of a safe voyage."

I agree. The traffickers should spend the rest of their lives in a Turkish prison. Tunisia has vowed to stop the flow of migrants coming from sub-Saharan Africa through that country - many of whom end up in slavery. But other countries where migrants are departing for Europe need to do much more. The problem is there doesn't seem to be the will to stop it.

Tunisia’s president calls for halt to sub-Saharan immigration amid crackdown on opposition

Pope Francis said he was praying for everyone caught up in the incident.

He said in his weekly address to crowds in St. Peter's Square: "I  heard with sorrow of the shipwreck off the Calabrian coast near Crotone.

"Already 40 dead have been recovered, many of them children.

"I pray for every one of them, for the missing and for the other surviving migrant."

Calabria, Italy

Hungarian archbishop: ‘Muslims are being called in to get

Christ and Christianity out of Europe’

FEB 24, 2023 11:00 AM 

BY ROBERT SPENCER

Jihad Watch

It has been nearly two months since the report below was published, and it refers to an interview from a month before that. Yet there is no record, or no public record anyway, of Pope Francis, who has been an energetic advocate for both Islam and for mass Muslim migration into Europe, calling Archbishop Emeritus Gyula Márfi on the carpet for his remarks about Islam and mass migration. This is likely because of the “Emeritus” designation; Gyula Márfi is retired, and so the woke pope need not trouble himself about this meddlesome priest.

Of course, he knew mainstream media would not cover this story anyway, it is much too close to the truth.

Possibly the most intelligent man in Catholicism, AB Emeritus Gyula Marfi

“Hungarian archbishop blasts Freemasonry, LGBT ideology,

rising Islam in Europe,” 

by Raymond Wolfe, 

LifeSite News, January 9, 2023 

VESZPRÉM, Hungary (LifeSiteNews) – A Hungarian prelate recently sounded off against the rise of LGBT ideology, Islam, and anti-Christian sentiment in Europe and the influence of Freemasonry over leaders of the European Union.

Read, In God's Name - David Yallop, to find out more about Freemasonry and its influence on the Catholic Church.

In an interview last month with conservative Hungarian newspaper Magyar Jelen, Archbishop Emeritus Gyula Márfi of Veszprém warned of a multi-pronged assault against European Christianity from left-wing forces within the E.U.

“One of the most striking signs of the European Union’s anti-Christianity,” he said, “is that its constitution did not commemorate Europe’s Christian roots,” a point similarly emphasized by Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI….

He recalled how the city of Brussels, the capital of the E.U., declined to put up a Christmas tree in 2012 for fear of offending its Muslim population….

The retired archbishop also pointed to the mass migration of Muslims as a chief means of weakening Europe’s Christian culture.

“In my opinion, Muslims are also being called in to get Christ and Christianity out of Europe,” he told Magyar Jelen.

“Today, Freemasons and Muslims are coming together to make Christianity disappear from Europe,” he observed. “It was practically the same as it was in the age of the Savior, when the Scribes and Pharisees worked with their deadly enemy, Pontius Pilate, to get Jesus out of the way.”

“In a multicultural, mixed society,” he continued, “the individual loses his identity, sense of identity, culture, faith, language, practically everything,” making people easier to manipulate for powerful corporations “who want to turn the whole Earth into a huge collective farm, where there are no ethnic, national and religious identities, only obedient workers and consumers manufactured according to standards.”

But European liberals “will ultimately ruin themselves” by embracing large-scale Muslim migration, he said, as “Islam will never accept their liberal principles.”

Archbishop Márfi has long been an outspoken critic of left-wing immigration policies, putting him at odds with Pope Francis, who has made embracing unfettered migration a central theme of his pontificate.

“The Holy Father asked every parish to accept a refugee Syrian family. Well, many parishes cannot sustain themselves without outside help,” the Hungarian prelate remarked in 2015.

“The leaders of the Muslim masses can clearly see that the situation is ripe to occupy the apostate continent,” he starkly warned at the time.

In his interview with Magyar Jelen, Archbishop Márfi alluded to Muslims’ long history of violence and terrorism against Christian Europe, and particularly Hungary, which suffered widespread devastation at the hands of the Turks during the Ottoman wars.

“They have been here in Hungary for 150 years, we know how much destruction they have caused,” he said of Muslims. “We Hungarians still carry the memory of this in our genes to some extent.”

EU Pushes for Refugee Camps Outside Europe to Curb Migrant Influx

FILE PHOTO © Alkis Konstantinidis / Reuters

EU ministers are pushing forward with plans to fund refugee camps outside the bloc to save migrants from drowning in the Mediterranean and bringing into Europe only those “who require protection.”

The long-debated topic was on the table at Thursday’s meeting between EU interior ministers in the Maltese capital, Valletta. Officials focused on the problem of refugees attempting to reach the Union via the Mediterranean and smugglers profiting from sending migrants on a dangerous naval journey.

“The idea is to send them to a safe place, without bringing them into Europe," German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said. To achieve that, the EU is considering funding special camps in Africa where migrants will be screened by rights organizations and the UN.

According to the German minister, "the people taken by the smugglers need to be saved and brought to a safe place.” He stressed, however, that from there “only those who require protection" would be forwarded to Europe.

The screening camps might be located in Libya or some of its neighboring countries and operated under the auspices of UN refugee agency UNHCR, or the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Reuters writes.

There's a 'safe place' anywhere in Libya?

Another key point of the gathering on Thursday were EU asylum laws which, according to the so-called Dublin agreements, state that asylum-seekers must make their application in the EU country that they entered first. According to de Maiziere, the bloc will have to apply “additional rules” if the influx reaches a “massive” level. 

At its peak in 2015, the EU faced over 1 million refugees fleeing unrest in the Middle East and Africa, most of them from Syria and Afghanistan.

The EU managed to slash the numbers after striking a deal with Ankara last year, which envisioned Turkey preventing migrants from reaching Europe through its territory. The European Union also set up a naval mission in the Mediterranean to deal with the refugee problem.

Yet, the number of asylum seekers fleeing their war-torn or impoverished home countries through the Mediterranean still remained high, with hundreds of thousands of arrivals. Libya and Algeria became major exit points, with people mainly trying to reach Italy or Greece. 

Last year was the deadliest in terms of casualties among refugees who opted for the risky naval journey, with over 5,000 people killed or missing. 

In the first three weeks of this year, the UNCHR says it counted at least 230 people dead or missing. 

The plans to establish outpost camps have been criticized by some MEPs.

"Even more refugees will be locked up in North Africa under high risk of torture, rape and other forms of ill treatment," German MEP Cornelia Ernst, said as quoted by Reuters.

Libya - mulled as one of the places for the refugee camps – has been plagued by years of violence between rival factions, which followed the NATO-backed removal of the country’s leader, Muammar Gaddafi, in 2011.

Boat Captain Guilty in Deadliest Mediterranean Shipwreck, Gets 18 Years

More than 700 migrants drowned as Malek deliberately collided with a rescue ship

"I have a little son from an Italian [woman]. I want to marry her," boat captain Mohammed Ali Malek told the court before his conviction Tuesday.

By Doug G. Ware, UPI

Tunisian fishing boat captain Mohammed Ali Malek (L) and Syrian deck hand Mahmud Bikhit were convicted by an Italian court Tuesday in the deaths of more than 700 people in the Mediterranean Sea's deadliest shipwreck. Malek was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Photos courtesy of Italian police

ROME, (UPI) -- The captain of a fishing boat, packed with illegal migrants, who authorities say caused the deadliest Mediterranean shipwreck in history was convicted and sentenced to prison on Tuesday.

Mohammed Ali Malek was convicted on charges of manslaughter, human trafficking and causing the disaster. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

More than 700 people are believed to have died on April 13, 2015, when the fishing vessel -- which carried scores of migrants bound for Italy -- abruptly collided with a Portuguese freighter ship, which was coming to the captain's aid.

The freighter, the King Jacob, was headed toward the fishing vessel to lend assistance after it received an emergency call from Italian authorities.

The small fishing vessel was destroyed and sunk, causing hundreds to drown in the sea. It's the Mediterranean's deadliest known shipwreck. Only 28 survivors were saved.

Including the Captain and mate!

According to investigators, Malek, 28, steered his boat into the freighter and caused the collision off the Italian island of Lampedusa.

The exact death toll is unknown because most of those who drowned were undocumented immigrants traveling illegally from Libya to Italian shores -- part of the migrant crisis that's enveloped Europe in the last two years.

According to estimates, nearly 5,000 migrants have died this year attempting to cross the Mediterranean, and about 3,700 died last year.

Mahmud Bikhit, a Syrian national who served as Malek's mate on the boat, was also convicted on charges of aiding illegal immigration. He was sentenced to five years in prison.

Malek's attorney said he plans to appeal the verdict and the sentence. Both men were also fined $9.5 million. Both have denied accusations that they were involved in human trafficking.

"I have been in Italy for two and a half years and I have a little son from an Italian [woman]. I want to marry her and [claim my son]. It's the truth," Malek told the court before Tuesday's verdict.

Good luck with that!

According to Malek, a citizen of Tunisia, his boat was thrust into the King Jacob by a large wave that was created in the sea by the freighter's large propellers.

"My client says he was a mere passenger," attorney Massimo Ferrante told The New York Times.

After the verdict, prosecutors said the case set two important precedents -- that traffickers who get into life-threatening situations can be criminally prosecuted after their rescue, and that migrants in such scenarios can be considered victims and avoid legal liability.

Lampedusa Island, Italy

Rescuing Refugees from Drowning will be ‘Criminalized’ Under New EU Law – Activists

The EU has hastily drawn up poorly thought-out laws
that would label those who rescue migrants from the sea
as smugglers subject to criminal proceedings

© Giorgos Moutafis / Reuters

A petition has been launched calling on EU leaders to scrap plans that would criminalize those who rescue migrants and refugees arriving on the Greek islands as part of a push to secure the border between Turkey and Greece.

London-based civil liberties watchdog Statewatch has released the confidential European Commission report detailing the plan, which was outlined in talks between EU ministers in Amsterdam late last month.

The proposed plans would remove the exemption for charities, volunteer groups and others who provide “humanitarian assistance” to refugees from being considered “smugglers.” Under the new rules, which are aimed at reducing human smuggling and trafficking, these groups and individuals would be criminalized.

The EU would instead create a state-run agency that would force would-be volunteers to register with the police and work under tightly controlled EU relief plans.

The petition, which has amassed almost 5,000 signatures to date, was launched by an activist in London and calls on the European Commission to scrap the plans.

Statewatch director Tony Bunyan says the plan “fails to acknowledge the crucial role played by Greek islanders and volunteers in rescuing and caring for migrants who cross the Mediterranean in unsafe vessels.

“The EU should amend its anti-smuggling laws as soon as possible to confirm that no one giving such vital humanitarian assistance should ever be penalized for it.”

In January alone, at least 244 refugees drowned trying to cross the Aegean Sea. This figure is three times higher than the 82 who died last January and 20 times higher than the 12 who died in 2014. 

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), nearly 37,000 migrants have arrived in Italy and Greece by sea since the beginning of last year.

The Greek Island of Lesbos (Lesvos) is in the eastern Aegean just off the coast of Turkey