The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday ruled that Italy violated human rights principles by spurning African migrants and asylum-seekers on the high seas, a judgment hailed as historic by Amnesty International. In the case, Hirsi Jamaa and Others v. Italy, the Court considered the plight of 24 people from Somalia and Eritrea who were among more than 200 people intercepted at sea by Italian authorities in 2009 and forced to return to Libya, their point of departure.
