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ROME: Migrants and rights activists protested in Rome Saturday against Italy’s migrant deal with Libya, a day after some 20 people were feared dead in the latest boat wreck in the Mediterranean.
Under a controversial 2017 deal renewed under Prime Minister Georgia Meloni’s hard-right government, Italy funds and trains the Libyan coast guard.
In return, Libya is expected to help stem the departure of migrants to Italy or return those already at sea back to Libya. That agreement is up for renewal next month.
During the protest, dozens of migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa recounted what they endured in Libya, and a minute of silence was held for those who died trying to cross the Mediterranean.
Hundreds of people attended the event, including activist Sarita Fratini.
“In the central Mediterranean, there is a line called the line of death,” Fratini told AFP.
“In the Libyan area, you get captured. In the north, you die because there is no one there.”
Fratini has been helping migrants sue Italy after they were seized in the Mediterranean by Libya and pushed back to detention centers there.
Rights activists and former detainees have denounced such centers for abuse, torture and other crimes.

- ‘Total anguish’ -

Irene Dea, 46, from Ivory Coast, told AFP she had tried to reach Europe three times by boat, with 12 people dying in the Mediterranean on her first attempt.
After Libyan forces pushed back her boat, she spent six months at the notorious Az-Zawiyah detention center west of Tripoli.
“I saw women being raped with my own eyes” there, she said. “You don’t eat... it was total anguish.”
NGOs have reported increasing episodes in recent months of Libya’s coast guard shooting at boats carrying migrants in the Mediterranean.
Last week, the Alarm Phone charity, which runs a hotline for migrants stranded in the Mediterranean, reported a fatal shooting at a boat it said was carrying 113 migrants southeast of Malta.
Italy’s coast guard also said migrants it subsequently rescued said they had been shot at.
If boats are not returned to Libya, migrants still have to survive the journey across the Mediterranean.
That crossing has cost the lives of more than 1,000 people so far this year, according to the International Organization for Migration.

- Rescue operation criticized -

On Friday, Italy’s coast guard said it was searching for the survivors of a wrecked vessel carrying about 30 people in the search and a rescue area of Malta, some 50 miles southeast of Lampedusa.
It said the coast guard had rescued seven people and another four were picked up by a nearby merchant ship.
One body was recovered, with Italian and Maltese patrol vessels and Italian planes taking part in the search.
The Italian coordinator for UNICEF, Nicola Dell’Arciprete, told AGI news agency that a pregnant woman had died and “several children are reported missing.”
He said four children traveling alone were among the survivors, who told authorities the small fiberglass boat had left Al Khums, Libya, before capsizing after two days at sea.
Sea-Watch International, which operates migrant rescue boats, criticized the rescue operation.
“Italy and Malta knew about the boat since yesterday afternoon, thanks to Alarm Phone, but did not send help until it was too late,” it said in a social media post Saturday.
Alarm Phone also said it had signalled the boat carrying about 35 people to the authorities, but “they failed to act.
“The boat capsized, we fear about 20 deaths. We cannot express our anger at yet another group consciously being left to die,” wrote Alarm Phone on social media.

MADRID: Portugal’s parliament on Friday approved a bill banning face veils worn for “gender or religious” reasons in public, in a move seen as targeting the face coverings worn by some Muslim women.

The measure was proposed by the far-right Chega party and would prohibit coverings such as burqas — a full-body garment that covers a woman from head to foot — and niqabs — the full-face Islamic veil with space around the eyes — from being worn in most public places. Face veils would still be allowed in airplanes, diplomatic premises and places of worship.

The bill stipulates fines for those wearing face veils in public ranging between 200 euros and 4,000 euros ($234 and $4,669).

President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa still has to approve the bill. He could veto it or send it to the Constitutional Court for review.

If signed into law, Portugal would join a number of European countries such as Austria, France, Belgium and the Netherlands who have full or partial bans on face and head coverings.

Not many women in Portugal wear such coverings, but the issue of Islamic veils has generated controversy similar to other European countries.

Chega cited France and other European Union countries’ rationales for banning face coverings commonly worn by Muslim women. The far-right Portuguese party received support for the bill from center-right parties.

In its bill, Chega said that hiding the face subjects individuals — especially women — “to situations of exclusion and inferiority” and was incompatible with principles such as “liberty, equality and human dignity.”

Lawmakers from left-leaning parties disagreed.

“This initiative is used solely to target foreigners, those who have a different faith,” said center-left Socialist Party lawmaker Pedro Delgado Alves whose party voted against the bill.

He said that while no woman should be forced to wear a veil, the far-right party’s approach was wrong.