Ship with 1,000 immigrants on board towed to Italy

A rusty freighter carrying 1,000 illegal immigrants was towed into the Sicilian port of Catania today under police and navy escort.

It was the largest group of immigrants ever to land in Sicily, police said.

Hundreds of women and children were on board the 247 ft Monica, police said.

Officials said the immigrants were in good condition, including a woman who gave birth with the help of an Italian doctor who was flown on board by helicopter.

Both the mother and her daughter were doing well, said Maria Teresa Meli, a doctor at the Catania hospital where the two were taken before the ship docked.

The nationalities of the passengers were not immediately clear, said Franco Ferranti, a border police official in Catania. Some reports said many of the immigrants said they were from Iraq as they disembarked.

The Interior Ministry said they would be transferred to a detention centre in Puglia, southern Italy.

The ship was believed to have set sail in Lebanon, but it was not clear how long it had been at sea, Ferranti said.

Police and navy officials in Catania intercepted the ship overnight. It had earlier been spotted by the French navy in the eastern Mediterranean.

Each year, thousands of illegal immigrants slip into Italy by boat. Many travel on to other European countries, including Britain, France and Germany.