825 Migrants--Mostly Kurds--Rescued
Italian tugboats rescued 825 illegal immigrants, most of them Kurds, from a Turkish ship that ran aground off the southern coast here Saturday in one of the largest-ever attempts to smuggle people into Italy.
By midafternoon, all the passengers had been brought ashore, the Italian news agency ANSA reported from Soverato, a coastal town in the “toe” of the boot-shaped peninsula.
Two men and a woman were hospitalized for dehydration after the six-day voyage in which passengers said they were given only bread and cheese to eat.
Passengers, who also included Pakistanis and Iraqis, were given temporary shelter at schools and a sports center.
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