This seasonal resurgence of arrivals during the summer coincides this year in Italy with an hectic political context.
Le Monde with AFP
More than a thousand migrants have landed in recent hours in Italy in recent hours and hundreds of others are waiting on Saturday, July 23, aboard humanitarian ships. More than 600 people trying to cross the Mediterranean aboard a fishing boat were rescued on Saturday by a merchant ship and the coast guards off the Calabria, in the extreme south of the boot. They were landed in several ports in Sicily. The authorities also found five bodies of migrants who died in still indeterminate circumstances on board.
On the island of Lampedusa, 522 people, from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia in particular, arrived on the night of Saturday July 23 to Sunday 24 on the fifteen different boats, from Tunisia and Libya. According to Italian media, the reception center for this little rock closer to Africa than Italy is overwhelmed. With a capacity of around 300 people, it currently houses 1,200, says the Ansa agency.
The daily Sicilia specifies that the last landings in Lampedusa have seen ships with dozens, even hundreds of people, but also small tires. Thus four Tunisians, including a woman, ran aground overnight on Cala Pisana beach after crossing the little arm of the sea that separates Tunisia from the island. Simultaneously, the coast guards intercepted a 13-meter ship, who left Zawija in Libya, with 123 Pakistanis, Bangladais, Egyptians and Sudanese on board.
34,000 people who arrived in Italy since the start of The year
Furthermore, the emergency NGOs at sea continue to recover hundreds of migrants in perdition in the Mediterranean. Sea-Watch announced Sunday that it had carried out four rescue operations on Saturday. “On board the Sea-Watch 3, we have 428 people, including women and children, a nine-month pregnant woman and a patient with serious burns,” she said on her Twitter account. The Ocean-Viking, of the NGO SOS Méditerranée, would have recovered 87 people, including 57 unaccompanied minors, piled up on “an overcrowded pneumatic boat in distress in international waters off Libya”.
Between the 1 er January 22, 34,000 people arrived by the sea in Italy, against 25,500 over the same period of 2021 and 10,900 in 2020, according to the ministry of The interior. The central Mediterranean migration route is the most dangerous in the world. The International Organization for Migration estimates the number of deaths and missing at 990 since the start of the year.
This seasonal resurgence of arrivals during the summer coincides this year in Italy with an eventful political context. Prime Minister Mario Draghi, released by several parties composing his government of national unity, has resigned. The President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, dissolved the Parliament and set for September 25 of the elections for which the right and the extreme right are given favorite. Sunday morning on Twitter, Matteo Salvini, leader of the League (anti-immigration), deplored the arrival of “411 illegal immigrants in a few hours in Lampedusa”. “On September 25, Italians will finally be able to choose the change: for the return of security, courage and border control,” he wrote.