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A30 world news
Dialuna 29 augustus 2022

Hundreds of migrants reach Italian shores over weekend

ROME (AP) — Italian authorities ANSA said.
scrambled on Sunday to relieve over-
crowding in shelters after scores of boats The humanitarian organization Doctors
carrying a total of about 1,000 migrants Without Borders tweeted that one of its res-
reached Italy's southern shores and two cue ships, Geo Barents, saved 25 migrants,
of its tiny islands over the weekend. including five minors, from a small boat in
distress in international waters near Libya
Nearly 50 boats arrived between Friday on Saturday night. Geo Barents already had
night and Saturday on Lampedusa island other migrants abroad plucked to safety in
off Sicily, according to state radio and other other rescue operations, the group said.
Italian media. Other boats carrying migrants
reached Pantelleria, another tiny island fa- With the disembarkation of hundreds of
vored by vacationers. migrants from boats in the last days, the
residence temporarily housing rescued mi-
Hundreds of migrants stepped ashore from grants on Lampedusa quickly became over-
the virtual flotilla of smugglers' vessels on crowded. Corriere della Sera said the resi-
those islands. Several of the vessels launched dence housed 1,500 asylum-seekers, nearly
by migrant smugglers held as few as eight four times its capacity.
passengers. But others had around 100 pas-
sengers aboard, many of them from Tunisia, Interior ministry authorities arranged for
according to the reports. a commercial passenger ferry to sail from
Sicily to Lampedusa, where it was expect-
Other boats reached the shores of the Italian ed to arrive on Sunday night, embark 250
mainland on Saturday, either unaided or as- migrants and take them to Sicilian migrant
sisted by Italian coast guard vessels. residences to lessen crowding on the tiny is-
land's facility.
The Italian news agency ANSA said that 92
migrants, most of them from Afghanistan, While hundreds of thousands of migrants
reached Puglia — the "heel" of the boot- have set sail from Libyan shores aboard
shaped peninsula — in a sailboat on Satur- smugglers' boats in the last decades, many
day. Still other migrants sailed to Calabria in also set out from Tunisia.
the "toe" of the peninsula, while other boats
reached Sicily and Sardinia, Italy's two big- Italian media noted the Tunisian coast guard
gest islands, in the last two days. had thwarted at least a score of attempts by
vessels filled with migrants to head toward
On Sardinia, Carabinieri paramilitary police Italy and rescued many others from boats in
spotted 29 migrants walking along a road, distress on Friday and Saturday.

Russia, Ukraine trade claims of nuclear plant attacks

SLOVIANSK, Ukraine (AP) — nificant damage or injuring anyone. Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
Russia and Ukraine traded claims Russian Defense Ministry spokes-
of rocket and artillery strikes at man Igor Konashenkov said Sunday Nearby, heavy firing during the night In eastern Ukraine, where Russian
or near Europe's largest nuclear that Ukrainian forces had attacked left parts of Nikopol without electric- and separatist forces are trying to take
power plant on Sunday, intensify- the plant twice over the past day, and ity, said Valentyn Reznichenko, the control, shelling hit the large and
ing fears that the fighting could that shells fell near buildings storing Dnipropetrovsk region's governor. strategically significant cities of Kra-
cause a massive radiation leak. reactor fuel and radioactive waste. Rocket strikes damaged a dozen resi- matorsk and Sloviansk, with no casu-
dences in Marhanets, according to alties reported, said Pavlo Kyrylenko,
Russian forces took control of the In another apparent attack Sunday, Yevhen Yevtushenko, the administra- the Donetsk region's governor.
Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant Russian forces shot down an armed tion head for the district that includes Konashenkov said Russian missile
soon after the war began and hold Ukrainian drone targeting one of the the city of about 45,000. strikes killed 250 Ukrainian soldiers
adjacent territory along the left bank Zaporizhzhia plant's spent fuel stor- and reservists in and near Sloviansk.
of the wide Dnieper River. Ukraine age sites, a local official said. Vladimir The city of Zaporizhzhia, about 40 Ukrainian officials didn't comment
controls the right bank, including Rogov, a Russian-installed regional kilometers (25 miles) up the Dnieper on the claim, in keeping with their
the cities of Nikopol and Marhanets, official, said on the Telegram messag- River from the nuclear plant, also policy of not discussing losses.
each about 10 kilometers (six miles) ing app that the drone crashed onto a came under Russian fire, damaging Sloviansk resident Kostiantyn
from the facility. building's roof, not causing any sig- dozens of apartment buildings and Daineko told The Associated Press
homes and wounding two people, that he was falling asleep when an ex-
city council member Anatoliy Kurtev plosion blew out his apartment win-
said. Russian forces struck a Zapori- dows.
zhzhia repair shop for Ukrainian air
force helicopters, Konashenkov said. Russian and separatist forces hold
much of the Donetsk region, one of
Neither side's claims could be inde- two Russia has recognized as sover-
pendently verified. eign states.

Downriver from the nuclear plant, Periodic shelling has damaged
Ukrainian rockets hit the Kakhovka the power station's infrastructure,
hydroelectric plant and adjacent city Ukraine's nuclear power operator,
three times on Sunday, said Vladimir Energoatom, said Saturday.
Leontyev, the head of the Russia-in-
stalled local administration. The U.N.'s atomic energy agency has
tried to work out an agreement with
The plant's dam is a major roadway Ukrainian and Russian authorities to
across the river and a potentially key send a team to inspect and secure the
Russian supply route. The dam forms plant, but it remained unclear when
a reservoir that provides water for the the visit might take place.