A boat with around 200 African migrants, including 48 women and 5 children has arrived in the Sicilian port of Pozallo. The significance of this is that it doubles the number of migrants to arrive in Italy over the past 6 months since the introduction of their 'push back' policy in May cut the number of arrivals by more than 90%.
It is not known where the boat set sail from but the migrants, who all claim to be from Eritrea, have managed to avoid the extensive anti-migrants patrols carried out by the Italian Navy and the Libyans Coast Guard, using Italian supplied fast patrol boats. It seems likely that the boat left from Eastern Libya away from the normal patrol zones and the normal route to Lampedusa.
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