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La Repubblica, April 20, 2015
"The Migrant Apocalypse." Rome-based daily La Repubblica, like other newspapers around Italy and the world, featured the deadly accident in the Mediterranean Sea on the front page of its Monday edition. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi called the traffic of undocumented immigrants a "new slave trade."
The newspaper featured both news reports and commentary on the immigration crisis facing Africa and Europe, with Italy and Libya caught on the front line. At least 700 people are thought to have died Sunday after a boat that left the Libyan coast bound for Sicily capsized. There have been reports that up to 1,000 were on the boat, and only 28 have been rescued. It is believed to be the worst maritime disaster in Europe since World War II.
Civil-war ravaged Libya has become a major hub for human traffickers since the NATO intervention and the fall of the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Up to 1,500 migrants are thought to have perished crossing the Mediterranean since the beginning of 2015. European Union leaders are holding an emergency summit in Luxembourg on Monday to discuss a common response to the ongoing migrant crisis. Read more from the BBC ad check our collection of world front pages.
ABOUT THE SOURCE: La Repubblica was founded in 1976 by the Gruppo Editoriale L’Espresso. It is now based in Rome and has a centre-left political stance.
