233 Nigerians, other nationals rescued from a boat near Sicily.

The immigration waves which claimed hundreds of lives in the shipwrecks during the year 2013 did not stop in the New Year. The Italian Navy confirmed the rescue of 233 mostly African migrants from a 10 meter (yard) boat in Mediterranean waters, south of Sicily.

More than two hundred people were saved from choppy seas in the late hours of January 1, 2014, Wednesday.

According to the statement by the Italian Navy, the immigrants were ferried in the morning of January 2, 2014, Thursday, to a port near Syracuse on Sicily's eastern coast.

On board were men and women from Eritrea, Nigeria, Somalia, Zambia and Mali as well as from Pakistan.

It would be mentioned that sea arrivals to Italy from the Northern Africa more than tripled last year due to Syria's civil war, crisis in various states of Africa, the Horn of Africa in particular. In October 2013, 366 Eritreans drowned in a shipwreck near the shore of the Italian island of Lampedusa. 

Source: Legit.ng