ROME, Feb 18: Illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers set fire to part of their detention centre on the southern Italian island of Lampedusa on Wednesday after a failed escape attempt, police said.

Fourteen people were being treated for smoke inhalation but no one was seriously injured, Italian media reported.

Police said many of the immigrants involved in the unrest were from Tunisia.

It was the latest outbreak of unrest at the newly named Centre for Identification and Expulsion, which Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative government hopes will speed deportations of illegal immigrants.

The United Nations criticised the centre last month and expressed concern about conditions there.

“There were certainly difficult moments,” police chief Girolamo di Fazio told Italian television, adding migrants hurled “objects” at police trying to restrain them.

“Then they set fire to one of the pavilions, which suffered serious damage.”

Lampedusa’s Mayor Dino De Rubeis said flames reached a height of 10 metres and police used tear gas to end the riot.

“This is the fault of the government ... the immigrants are exasperated,” De Rubeis told Italy’s ANSA news agency.

Originally a temporary stop for people waiting for transfer to other centres in Italy, the camp’s role has changed this year. Tough new immigration rules mean they are now kept in Lampedusa until being granted asylum or expelled.

Last month more than

1,000 would-be immigrants broke out of the centre and marched to the town hall in protest at their conditions.

Most migrants reaching Italy by sea last year applied for asylum, of whom half got refugee status or protection on other humanitarian grounds, the United Nations refugee agency says. —Reuters

Opinion

Editorial

Risky slope
Updated 17 Dec, 2024

Risky slope

Inflation likely to see an upward trajectory once high base effect tapers off.
Digital ID bill
17 Dec, 2024

Digital ID bill

THEY appear to be at it again — bulldozing legislation. The government now has a plan to turn Pakistan into a...
Dangerous revisionism
17 Dec, 2024

Dangerous revisionism

THE ongoing campaign by Sangh Parivar fanatics in India questioning the origins of mosques and other Muslim holy...
Remembering APS
Updated 16 Dec, 2024

Remembering APS

Ten years later, the state must fully commit itself to implementing NAP if Pakistan is to be rid of terrorism and fanaticism.
Cricket momentum
16 Dec, 2024

Cricket momentum

A WASHOUT at The Wanderers saw Pakistan avoid a series whitewash but they will go into the One-day International...
Grievous trade
16 Dec, 2024

Grievous trade

THE UN’s Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2024 is a sobering account of how the commodification of humans...