New Route Opening Up for Smuggling Migrants Into Europe, Frontex Says

Italian police look at migrants aboard the Ezadeen after the cargo vessel arrived in the southern Italian port of Corigliano, 3 January 2015 morning. Photo EPA/BGNES

People traffickers have been recently using a new route to smuggle migrants from the Middle East into Europe, herding them onto cargo ships sailing from Turkey to Italy, euobserver.com reported.

The latest incident occurred last week when two cargo ships, the Sierra-Leone flagged Ezadeen and Blue Sky M, flying Moldova's flag, were intercepted by the Italian coast guard vessels operating within the EU’s border surveillance mission, Triton.

“There is definitely a new route opening up,” the news outlet quoted a spokesperson for the EU’s border control agency, Frontex, as saying on Monday.

Both ships had been cruising at full speed towards Italy when intercepted by Italian coast guard. The two ships carried about 1,200 migrants, most of them believed to be coming from war-torn Syria.

According to Frontex, smugglers were often buying cargo ships from scrapyards and then sent them to Italy from Turkey’s port of Mersin. Some 17 cargo ships have been intercepted on the route in the Mediterranean since July.

According to EU migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, “these events underscore the need for decisive and coordinated EU-wide action.”

Fears of a rise in migrant deaths at sea have increased as Frontex-led Mediterranean coastal mission Triton replaced the much wider – and more expensive - naval rescue operation Mare Nostrum off the coast of Libya led by Italy last year.

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