https://www.bbc.com/russian/articles/cn0zpwdj903o
The small Italian island of Lampedusa is unable to cope with the influx of illegal migrants, whose number has exceeded the number of its permanent residents. “In the last 28 hours, around 7,000 people have arrived in Lampedusa, which has always welcomed them [migrants] with open arms,” Mayor Filippo Mannino said in an interview with Italian radio. “But now we find ourselves at the point of no return. Europe and the Italian authorities must immediately intervene and move people quickly,” he added.
The mayor’s concern is completely justified: the permanent population of the island is just over 6,000 people, and local authorities are simply not able to cope with the reception and dispatch of such a number of fugitives. The island of Lampedusa, part of the Pelagian Islands group, is the southernmost point of Italy and the first port where boats with migrants from North Africa sail. There is a reception center for migrants, but its official capacity is only 400 people, so most new arrivals have to sleep outside.
On Wednesday, clashes broke out between migrants and police at the docks as Red Cross workers distributed food and water. But the police quickly suppressed them. According to the latest data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, more than 120 thousand people have arrived in Italy by boat since the beginning of the year. This is almost double the figures for the same period last year.
On Tuesday, the number of migrant boats was so large that they had to line up to disembark passengers. Giovanni Di Leo, chief prosecutor of Agrigento, the province that includes Lampedusa, said that on Tuesday alone, 112 boats carrying more than 5,000 people arrived on the island, almost double the previous record of 63 boats reported in one day last month .
“The reason for the crisis in Lampedusa is that for the first time the route from Tunisia has become so busy... and it is more difficult to control than the route from Libya,” said Flavio Di Giacomo, a spokesman for the UN International Organization for Migration. The road from Tunisia is much shorter, so taking advantage of the calm sea, many migrants decided to cross to Italy this way.
Migrants arriving in Lampedusa are being transported to Sicily to prevent overcrowding on the island, but now that their numbers have exceeded all expectations, there are simply not enough ships to accommodate them. According to the Italian news agency ANSA, on Wednesday, September 13, 1,650 people were taken from the island, but another 3,750 were waiting in line. One of the Italian deputy prime ministers, Antonio Tajani, wrote on social networks that the government “will do everything necessary to help the residents of Lampedusa and migrants who continue to arrive on the island."
Information portal infomigrants.net, set up to inform migrants arriving in Europe and partly funded by the EU, said France plans to strengthen its border with Italy to curb illegal migration. French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said he was considering the measure as the number of migrants crossing the border into Italy doubled.
Meanwhile, Germany decided to suspend the screening process for asylum seekers arriving in the country from Italy, which it and other EU countries carried out on a voluntary basis. This decision, as the Minister of the Interior told Welt, was caused by “strong migration pressure.”
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