Around 1,000 migrants and refugees have reached the island of Lampedusa in the previous few days – Reuters
Italy’s authorities is underneath large strain to staunch the arrivals of migrants from the coast of North Africa as the nation recorded a 9-fold improve within the variety of asylum seekers reaching its shores since 2019.
Latest figures present the migration panorama shifting with many extra makes an attempt to succeed in Spain and Italy than Greece, which has adopted hardline insurance policies.
On Friday, Greece’s migration minister mentioned the federal government had adopted the measures so “we don’t send the wrong message of incentivising people to come”, and Italy’s Right-wing politicians are pushing the federal government of Maria Draghi to observe go well with.
It got here as at least 4 folks died, together with a girl believed to be pregnant and an eight-12 months-previous boy, and one other 4 had been lacking after a migrant boat overturned off Lanzarote within the Canary Islands.
The vessel was carrying 49 folks when it hit a rocky space simply off the island’s northern shores, with rescuers pulling 41 folks to security, emergency companies mentioned.
Migrants aboard a search-and-rescue boat arrive on the Italian island of Lampedusa – Reuters
So far this 12 months, greater than 18,000 migrants and refugees have landed in Italy after crossing the Mediterranean from Libya and Tunisia.That compares to five,700 in the identical interval final 12 months and simply 2,100 within the corresponding interval in 2019.
So many migrants are reaching Italian soil that the nation “risks becoming a sieve,” mentioned Matteo Salvini, the chief of the hard-Right League get together, who has repeatedly criticised the prime minister regardless of being a member of his coalition.
He known as for “immediate intervention” by the prime minister to deal with the exodus from North Africa, which has resulted in 77,000 migrants being accommodated in Italian reception centres.
Like its predecessors, the coalition authorities led by Mr Draghi is annoyed that the remainder of the EU is providing little solidarity when it comes to accepting migrants and refugees for resettlement.
A ship docking in Sicily in May after rescuing 414 migrants, together with 150 minors, from the Mediterranean – FRANCESCO RUTA/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
There has been a sharp rise in the number of migrant boats reaching Sicily and the tiny island of Lampedusa in latest weeks. The arrival of 1,000 migrants on Lampedusa previously week has overwhelmed the island’s reception centre.
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The Covid-19 pandemic has led to an financial crisis throughout a lot of Africa which is propelling folks in direction of Europe, specialists say. And the continuing instability in Libya supplies a fertile floor for folks traffickers, felony gangs and militias to behave with impunity.
Mr Salvini will bang the drum over the migrant situation when he holds a rally in Rome on Saturday for supporters of the League.
Although migrant arrivals are inflicting alarm, they’re decrease than throughout the peak of the 2010s refugees. In 2014, 170,000 asylum seekers arrived in Italy by sea, adopted by 154,000 in 2015 and 181,000 in 2016.
“The numbers this year are not high (in comparison),” Flavio Di Giacomo from the International Organisation for Migration, the UN’s migration company, instructed The Telegraph.
Greek police patrol a brand new 5-metre metal fence put in alongside the Evros River by the border with Turkey – Byron Smith /Getty Images Europe
In distinction to Italy, Greece has seen a dramatic decline within the variety of asylum seekers making an attempt to enter its territory by land and sea from Turkey.
Those who do attain Greece’s islands within the Aegean are detained in squalid camps made up of tents and steel containers, the place they usually languish for years till their asylum functions are thought-about.
Greece has toughened its border management – the Greek coast guard has been repeatedly accused of pushing migrant boats back in direction of the Turkish coast, in violation of worldwide legislation.
Recently it was reported that the Greek police on the land border had been experimenting with using controversial sound cannons – acoustic units which hearth bursts of deafening noise over the frontier to harass and deter migrants.
Notis Mitarachi, the Greek migration minister, instructed Reuters: “Our policy is strict but fair.”
Like Italy, Spain is underneath strain, with greater than 11,000 migrants arriving by sea to date this 12 months. So far this 12 months greater than 5,700 migrants have made the damaging crossing from Africa to the Canaries archipelago, over twice as many as in the identical interval in 2020, which itself noticed an eightfold improve from 2019.
A record 850 died on the route last year, in response to the United Nations migration company, which urged Covid-19 had prompted many employees in struggling industries like fishing or agriculture emigrate.