• Jailed Syria activists lose early release petition
• Hariri to pay another visit to Syria by end of month
• Israel calls off exercises near Lebanon, Syria after pressure from Obama
• Egypt criticizes growing Iranian influence on Syria
• Worsening year by year - Drought hits Syria badly
• Turkey says Syria-Israel talks may restart
• Israel and Syria announce nuclear energy ambitions
• Syria mulls renewed Turkish-brokered talks with Israel
• Syria Condemns Israeli "Incursion" of the Temple Mount
• Celebrating International Women's Day, Facebook Gives Rose to Fidaa al-Hourani Behind Bars

Boat Carrying 124 Refugees Lands on Corsica

Such landings are common on Italian islands well to the south, but are rare for France. The group — which includes 38 children (nine of them nursing), five pregnant women and one disabled person — were transferred by authorities to a gymnasium in the nearby town of Bonifacio, where they were fed and examined by doctors and the Red Cross, the local police prefecture said.

Local authorities also provided clothes, toys and cigarettes, while beds were provided from a local airbase.

Translators were brought to talk to the group, which was without papers. The police said that many appeared to be Kurds from Syria, where they are often discriminated against, or from Iraq but that some could also be from the Mahgreb, especially Tunisia, where the boat trip apparently began.

The French minister for Immigration, Eric Besson, said in a statement that some of the migrants identified themselves as Kurds from Syria and that others were from North Africa. He told reporters a suspicious boat had since been spotted in international waters and was due to be stopped by Italian authorities.

Jean-Jacques Casalot, a police officer, told French television that “we were obviously quite surprised to see these Kurds reach Corsica, because generally they appear on the Italian coast.”

Helicopters and ships were patrolling near the island in cooperation with Italian authorities to look for other trafficking vessels or groups of refugees.

Mr. Besson urged a rapid meeting of European Union ministers to discuss the flow of illegal immigrants and how to better control borders and seacoasts, including joint maritime patrols. France and Italy want uniform rules for migrants, but some countries in the union have different legal positions on immigration and refugee status.

“We cannot let the Mediterranean fall into the hands of human traffickers,” Mr. Besson said.

France has largely avoided the migrant wave from the south, though it has a number of illegal migrants on its northern coast who try to get across the Channel to Britain. In February 2001, more than 900 Kurds landed on France’s Cote D’Azur between St. Tropez and Cannes when a people-trafficking ship washed ashore.