Africa's desperate cargo floods Italy's southern playground

ROME - On the island of Lampedusa, Italy's southernmost point, a paradox of life occurs every year.

As thousands of Italians jet down to soak up the sun and frolic in the azure sea, hundreds of illegal immigrants arrive from Africa, struggling to escape poverty and persecution.

They make their European landfall after long journeys through Africa: sneaking across closely guarded borders, hiding in dunes in the Sahara, passed from one gang of people-traffickers to another like merchandise, robbed of what little they had at the start of the journey.

If they have made it this far they are lucky: more than 2000 have died in the past 15 years.

Lampedusa is halfway between Malta and Tunisia. If sun, sand and aquamarine water are your thing, you could do worse.

Tourists disembark from their planes in view of the migrants' reception centre. One popular beach is in full view of the dock where immigrant boats are towed in. There is no contact.

Today the reception centre next to the airport is full to bursting. It is equipped to accommodate 190 people. There are only eight toilets, and they don't work well. A state of emergency has been declared.

The latest of several hundred arrivals have been fortunate: the weather has been fine and the sea flat. But in the past, coast guards have described ghastly scenes.

In October 2003 they boarded a dilapidated wooden fishing boat in mid-ocean where the dead and the still-just-alive were mixed up together, the survivors wailing for help.

When the corpses were removed, one young woman, unconscious and barely breathing, was found trapped underneath them.

Fifteen survived and 13 died, but survivors said about 70 more had been tossed overboard. Earlier that year, in June 2003, more than 200 died when their overloaded vessel sank.

Yet Italy has hardened its heart to the clandestini. Umberto Bossi, leader of the Northern League, said of the 200 dead: "They died while travelling, like many people on the roads." Earlier he said of the immigrant boats: "I want to hear the roar of cannon. The immigrants must be hunted down, for better or worse. At the second or third warning - boom. Fire the cannons at them. Otherwise this will never stop."

If you sit on the quay you can see the haves and have-nots processing into the dock: the pleasure boats puttering home from a day on the water; then the coastguard's ship comes into view, towing the latest heavily laden migrant vessel behind it.

Coastguards wearing rubber gloves and surgical masks march migrants up the gangplank, give them a bottle of water and sit them on the dock where a doctor looks them over. Thirsty and suffering from exposure their faces are grey.

On Lampedusa, a man painting his boat said: "This is not Lampedusa's problem. It's Italy's problem, it's Europe's problem. We don't even see them. We have nothing to do with them."

- INDEPENDENT