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Hundreds Of Immigrants In Rescue Drama Off French Riviera
SAINT-RAPHAEL, France, Feb 17 (News Agencies) - A rusty cargo ship crammed with at least 900 Kurdish migrants, more than half of them children and elderly, ran aground on the French Riveria coast early Saturday, sparking a major rescue operation.
An arrest warrant was issued for a Syrian ship owner, and the captain and crew, of the Cambodian-registered East Sea who fled the scene of France's biggest human-trafficking drama around the time the vessel hit a sand bar west of the resort city of Cannes.
Officials said the ship appeared to have been deliberately beached in an effort to disgorge its clandestine human cargo. Miraculously, there were no reports of casualties.
The immigrants, mainly Iraqi Kurds, included 300 children under 10 and 200 elderly people who had spent a week in "deplorable conditions" in a journey across the Mediterranean that began in Turkey a week ago.
Around 100 immigrants swam ashore, but the rest remained aboard as police, doctors, emergency workers, Red Cross officials and rescue dinghies were rushed to the scene.
"They rang my door bell," said a local man who raised the alarm.
"They were about 30 and they said, 'Help. U.N. Help.' They looked famished. I immediately called the police."
French President Jacques Chirac said he was "deeply scandalized" by the incident.
Chirac described the drama as "without precedent in France," and an event that "highlights the total absence of morals of those who traffic in human misery."
The prefect of France's southern Var department, Daniel Canepa, said the 50-meter (150-foot) ship had almost certainly been deliberately beached.
"There was no request for assistance from the ship. The weather was good, and it's not a dangerous area. All this points to the voluntary nature of the operation," Canepa told France Info radio.
Three women gave birth during the passage, police said, but no casualties were reported.
"There are no injured and no dead, but they are hungry and dehydrated and generally in poor condition," said Marc Petit, spokesman for the Var prefecture or governor's office.
After a week in horrific conditions without sunlight and little food or water, the illegal immigrants, who officials said numbered 908 late Saturday, were being housed at an army base in Frejus awaiting a decision on their fate.
Employment Minister Elizabeth Guigou said France's legal procedures would be respected and that the future of the illegal immigrants, none of whom were reported to have identity papers, would be judged on a case-by-case basis.
"First we have to give them good humanitarian assistance," Guigou said.
"They began their voyage more than two months ago ... They paid $200 (218 euros) to cross the border between Iraq and Turkey. Then, the children paid $1,500 and the adults from $3,000 to $4,000 for the trip to Europe," she said.
"They left because they were scared. They didn't know which European country they would land in," she added.
Far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen denounced what he said was "without doubt a criminal action ... a new step in the invasion of France and Europe by massive immigration from the third world."
Former Interior Minister Charles Pasqua said the illegals should be sent straight back home.
"We are faced with a problem of economic refugees, it's not a question of political refugees. If we accept them on our territory, we are opening a wide breach, which we cannot accept," Pasqua told France Info.
A court official in the town of Draguignan said the ship appeared to have made a stopover in Greece on its way to France from Turkey, but officials in Athens said there was no record of a ship called the East Sea leaving Greek waters.
The vessel ran aground in darkness at around 4:00 am (0300 GMT) on a sand bar 20 meters (yards) off the beach at Boulouris, 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Cannes.
Police who boarded the grounded vessel discovered hundreds of men, women and children in "deplorable conditions ... wedged into the hold" of the ship. Canepa said sanitary arrangements on board were "extremely precarious."
"We paid $200 to get on the boat, then $2,000 once we were on board. They gave us very little water or food. We were ripped off," said one passenger, who said he was from southern Iraq.
"We didn't know how long we were aboard. It was dark and we were hungry. Inside it was terrible, terrible.... But now we are in France, we are happy," said another who described himself as an Iraqi Kurd.
Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants enter France each year, many of them heading towards Britain. Unofficial figures suggest that between 100,000 and 200,000 illegal immigrants live permanently in France.
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