EUROPE/ITALY - Immigrant minors: the number of young children has increased tenfold, mostly Syrians fleeing

Rome (Agenzia Fides ) - 40,244 immigrants arrived in Italy via sea between January 1 and November 30, 2013, of whom 5,273 are women and 7,928 children, 1 out of 5. These are some data in the dossier "Immigrants minors arriving via sea - 2013", released today by Onlus "Save the Children", on the eve of International Migrants Day, which was sent to Fides Agency.
If Lampedusa was the landing point for the largest number of immigrants (14,088), it is the province of Syracuse area that received the greatest number of children and adolescents (3599), continues the dossier. The number of accompanied children who arrived via sea in Italy with at least one parent is ten times higher than that of the same period last year, 2,974 in 2013 compared to 282 in 2012. They are mostly Syrians (2,331), fleeing after finding themselves without a home and a job, because of a conflict that has lasted almost three years and in 2013 caused 2,500 refugee children a day. The number of unaccompanied foreign minors who landed on the shores of the south increased in 2013, from 1,841 to 4,954 . They are between 13 and 17 years of age, mostly males from Egypt (1,099), Somalia (816) and Eritrea (611), but even among them the largest group is that of teenage Syrians, who faced the escape or the journey alone (1.192). (SL) (Agenzia Fides 17/12/2013)