Italy rejects criticism of boat people's return to Libya

ROME (AFP) — Italy rejected Friday criticism by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees of its operation to return to Libya boat people picked up off its shores by Italian vessels.

In what Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni hailed as an "historic day" in the fight against illegal immigration, three Italian navy launches ferried 227 boat people into the port of Tripoli Thursday.

They had only been picked up the day before as they sailed from North Africa.

"The migrants were unable to make any demands for asylum because they weren't even received," UNHCR spokeswoman Laura Boldrini told AFP.

Last year, 75 percent of those who arrived in Italy, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa and the Horn of Africa, sought political or humanitarian asylum, and half of those obtained it, according to UNHCR figures.

Thousands of people flock to Italy and Malta each year, many economic migrants seeking a better life in Europe.

Libya has not signed the 1951 Geneva convention on refugees and has no reception centres for political refugees, Boldrini noted.

Italian Minister for European Affairs Andrea Ronchi hit back Friday.

"The UN's objections greatly surprised me because they mean that it is not aware of the situation in Italy," ANSA quoted him as saying.

"I would advise it to be better informed to avoid being demagogic, because some statements can be offensive."

Ronchi added that the tens of thousands of people who had been "saved, protected and welcomed by Italy" were an "example to the whole world."

Aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) also expressed condemnation.

"Far from being a historic event as the Italian government suggests, this forcible and cynical return is contrary to international laws," the head of MSF-Italy, Loris de Filippi, told AFP.

"You can't send people back to a country like Libya that hasn't ratified international humanitarian conventions like the Geneva convention on human rights," he added.

The European Commission said it needed more information before it could decide whether Italy's decision respected EU laws.

When asked whether the Italian navy's actions were legal, spokesman Michele Cercone said: "Everything will depend on the details."

He said much would depend on whether the boat people were picked up in Libyan, international or European waters, or whether the vessel had been in trouble or sent out a call for help.

The Vatican also expressed its "concern" Friday, with the Osservatore Romano newspaper saying "the obligation to help those who find themselves in desperate straits is a priority."

Meanwhile, about 170 Albanian students on three coaches were stranded Friday night on a ferry in the Adriatic port city of Trieste, as officials checked hotel reservations given in order to obtain visas.

The visas "are based on guarantees, in this case hotel reservations, (so) the absence of (reservation) documents poses a problem," said a police spokesman.

Some 36,900 boat people arrived on Italian shores last year, a 75 percent increase over 2007, according to interior ministry figures.

Arrivals have fallen off this year, with some 3,600 arriving between January and mid-April, but the pace is expected to quicken in the warm summer months, the ministry said.

Tripoli agreed to step up the fight against illegal immigration under a friendship accord between Italy and Libya signed in August 2008. Notably, it said it would take part in joint patrols with Italy.

The government meanwhile is pushing fresh legislation through on the issue. It looks set to introduce a new offence of "clandestine immigration," likened by the left-wing opposition to the racial purity laws introduced in Italy in the 1920s by the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini.