Meanwhile around the Mediterranean Sea

28.Jun.03 - While more than 5000 persons have demonstrated against the EUs asylum and migration policies outside the EU council meeting in Thessaloniki (see here) where the 15 Member States - in a rare occasion of not jumping on any plan that further erodes the right of asylum in Europe - refused to support the UKs imitative to set up 'processing centers' for UK bound refugees outside of the European Union (see here for an overview of what plans where actually agreed on) more that 250 would be immigrants have died of the Italian and Tunisian coast when the 2 boats carrying them sank. On Saturday 14th of June a boat carrying 70 immigrants sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa. 4 of them where rescued alive and while only 7 bodies have been recovered it is believed that the overall death toll is somewhere around 65. On Friday the 20th of June another ship carrying an estimated 250 Africans on their way to Italy sank of the Tunisian cost. Only 41 persons have been saved from the sea and while only 50 bodies have been recovered so far the authorities have given up hope of finding more survivors. At the same the Ghanese authorities have pointed out that in the first 5 month of this year an estimated 200 Ghanese nationals have died of dehydration and exhaustion while crossing the Sahara on their way to the Libyan cost.