Italy deports aid ship migrants

A plane took off for Ghana on Thursday carrying most of the group of Africans who arrived in Italy last week on a German aid ship, delayed for two hours by airport protests against the deportations.

Police detained four would-be asylum-seekers who refused to leave the departure lounge, but the remaining 27 were flown back to Africa.

The German aid organisation Cap Anamur delivered 37 Africans to Sicily last week after a three-week standoff at sea as Italy refused their ship, also called Cap Anamur, permission to dock.

Italy's Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu reiterated on Wednesday that the asylum-seekers were from Ghana and Nigeria, not crisis-hit Sudan as was initially suggested, and that they were illegal immigrants.

"Not one of them had refugee status," he told parliament during question and answer time.

After disembarking from the aid ship, the Africans were transferred to an immigrant holding centre while asylum requests were considered and eventually denied.

In a move that threatened to spark a diplomatic spat, police arrested the ship's captain, a crew member and the head of the aid group on suspicion of aiding illegal immigration. They were later released but the investigation is continuing.

On Thursday, opposition lawmakers and anti-globalisation activists tried to block the flight, with protesters surrounding the check-in desk at Rome's international airport.

"The expulsion of the Cap Anamur refugees is the tragic final act of a xenophobic government that has closed the doors on those who try to escape war, misery and inhuman conditions," opposition Senator Nuccio Iovene told AGI news agency.

The immigrants had been described by Cap Anamur as shipwreck survivors, possibly from crisis-hit Sudan, who were rescued from a rubber dinghy drifting in the Mediterranean.

Italy initially refused to let the ship dock, saying the Africans had been closer to Malta than Italy when they were picked up and should have applied for asylum there.

Italian investigators have since said they suspect the Africans may not be shipwreck survivors and that the aid group was staging a publicity stunt.

Five of the immigrants have already been flown to Nigeria while the four men detained on Thursday were likely to be put on a later flight. One of the 37 men has not yet been ordered deported.

The government has tried to crack down on the waves of illegal immigrants who try to land on Italy's shores each year with a tough new law passed in 2002, but Italy's highest court knocked down part of it last week.