Sailboats packed with migrants seek Italy in latest tactic

By TRISHA THOMAS
Associated Press

ROCCELLA JONICA, Italy (AP) — Officials in southern Italy are seeing a sharp increase in the number of migrant crossings using a lesser-known smuggling route from Turkey to the southern region of Calabria, in the “toe” of boot-shaped Italy. Entire families of wealthier Afghans, Iraqis and Iranians are paying upwards of $10,000 per adult for a “first-class” crossing in a sailboat. Afghans Hamid and Zakia, a young couple who fled after the Taliban took over Kabul, were packed with 100 people below deck for a week as food supplies on their expensive sailboat dwindled. They arrived on Nov. 10 in the latest smuggling operation using hard-to-detect luxury sailboats to land on Italian shores.