EU Commissioner Outlines Initiatives Against Illegal Migration

On June 19, 2001, António Vitorino, European Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs, outlined the European Union’s initiatives against illegal immigration. He observed that in April 2001, the incident of the arrival in Largo di Gallipoli of the vessel Koyduk-S, with more than 560 passengers on board from Iraq, Turkey, Bangladesh, Pakistan and other countries, indicates the large number of illegal aliens trying to reach Puglia and other parts of the EU. Usually the people come from Albania and Yugoslavia but Kurds from Turkey and Iraq and people from other countries also arrive. Often smugglers’ gangs bring them. The smuggling of human beings into the EU are mostly conducted by criminal networks and involve the exploitation of innocent people in modern forms of slavery after their arrival in the EU…[more]