Italy detains 38 involved in refugee trafficking into Europe
Authorities in Italy have arrested 38 people involved in smuggling refugees into Europe, as part of a crackdown on human trafficking in the European Union (EU) countries.
Italian police officials said on Monday that the detainees were working as a criminal ring which has smuggled thousands of refugees and asylum-seekers from conflict zones across the Middle East and Africa into the European soil.
“A dangerous criminal network dedicated to migrant trafficking has been dismantled - no respite for dealers in death,” Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said in a tweet after the announcement.
The officials said the group was comprised of 25 Eritreans, 12 Ethiopians and one Italian, adding that the ring had two hubs, one in the Sicilian city and the other in the Italian capital of Rome.
The suspects were detained in coordinated operations conducted in the two hub cities after an Eritrean arrested in 2014 agreed to collaborate with authorities in return for official protection.
The Eritrean man had said that traffickers would not hesitate to kill refugees with insufficient funds to pay their passage and sold their organs to human traffickers.
"I decided to cooperate because there have been too many deaths," authorities quoted the man as saying, adding that thousands of refugees who have drowned attempting to make perilous Mediterranean crossings comprise only a "small fraction" of the overall death toll.
Ever since the closure of the so-called Balkan route via Turkey and Greece in March, Italy has become the main entry point for the refugees heading for Europe.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a new report that 48,761 people have so far stepped on Italian shores in 2016, and that the average daily arrivals have also increased from 176 in January to 643 in May.
The Italian Interior Ministry, however, says that the total figure of arrivals in the current year is about 10 percent less than the same period last year.
Europe has been grappling with its biggest influx of refugees since World War II, as people flee conflict-ridden zones in Africa and the Middle East.
Many blame the support by some Western countries for militants operating in the Middle East as the main reason behind the refugee influx into Europe.
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