Syrian refugees land on Italian shores

Twenty-five Syrian refugees were among 150 migrants in three separate landings on Italian shores on Wednesday, the police said, adding that the Syrians had to be rescued after their boat ran aground. The Syrian group which landed on the coast of the Calabria region in southern Italy included four children and 12 women -- one of whom was more than 80 years old and two of whom were pregnant, the police said in a statement. The refugees were put on board a patrol boat and taken to the town of Roccella Ionica, where they are being housed in temporary accommodation. The statement did not specify where the refugees had left from. Tens of thousands of people have fled to Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey since the anti-regime uprising in Syria broke out in mid-March 2011. Also on Wednesday a boat with 51 migrants on board landed near Syracuse in Sicily -- the third such landing in the area in three days. The Italian border police did not provide the nationality of the migrants on board, which included 39 men, 11 women and one child. A third boat landed in the Calabria region with 74 people of various nationalities on board including 13 women and 27 children.