The Hindu : International / Globescan : Rome-Berlin row over refugees

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 15, 2004

International

International - Globescan

Rome-Berlin row over refugees

Rome: Silvio Berlusconi's Government was again at loggerheads with Germany on Tuesday after officials arrested three German aid workers who rescued a group of shipwrecked Africans and landed them on Sicily. As Italian Ministers protested that they had been `duped' into accepting the immigrants, a German Cabinet Minister demanded the aid workers be released. They include Elias Bierdel, the head of the Cap Anamur aid group. In Rome the Justice Minister, Roberto Castelli, said the landing of the 37 Africans had set a ``devastating precedent.'' Italian officials were told they were Sudanese fleeing the war-stricken Darfur region, but police who questioned the men after they disembarked said most appeared to be from Ghana and Nigeria. The latest stand-off between Rome and Berlin comes almost a year after the Governments clashed over Mr. Berlusconi's jibe that one of Gerhard Schroeder's party colleagues reminded him of a Nazi concentration camp guard. —

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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