LAMPEDUSA: Italy on Friday warned of a looming "humanitarian emergency" as coast guards intercepted six boats carrying hundreds of immigrants from Tunisia after the revolution there."There is a risk of a real humanitarian emergency," Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said. The uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia are leading to a "mass flight" to Italian shores by undocumented immigrants, Maroni said.
A spokesman for the coast guard service in Lampedusa, a tiny island located between Sicily and Tunisia's shores, told AFP that a total of 641 undocumented immigrants had been intercepted by coast guards since late on Thursday."They all said they were from Tunisia," the spokesman said.
The latest boat, carrying 181 people including 16 minors, was found early on Friday in Italian waters and taken to Lampedusa by coast guards.They will undergo health checks and will then be taken to immigrant detention centres ahead of eventual repatriation, he added.Maroni on Wednesday warned about the risk of "terrorist
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