Migration pressures in Italy, which is facing record numbers of arrivals and shipwrecks, are threatening Giorgia Meloni’s government. As more than 3,000 people disembarked in 24 hours at the ports of Lampedusa, the island closest to the African coast, and Porto Empedocle in southern Sicily, where hundreds more are expected this Saturday, the failures of the rescue have increased – and rescue systems have become clear to foster families in Italy to deal with the situation. The Prime Minister has even asked for help from NGOs operating in the Mediterranean to deal with various emergencies, in contradiction with his own rescue regulations.
Meloni promised that the strong hand against immigration, his historic campaign horse, would mark a turning point in Italy and Europe. But the reality is that ten months after he took office, not only has the situation not changed, but it has also become more complicated and managing the migratory flows remains an open question for Rome, conditioned by a Europe that is not doing so. The expected consensus of the Twenty-Seven has just advanced.
The situation in the last few days is becoming increasingly overwhelming. More than 3,000 migrants poured into the island of Lampedusa between Thursday and Friday. It’s an extremely high number; For weeks, almost a thousand people have landed on the island every day in favorable weather conditions.
This significant increase in the number of people sailing the central Mediterranean route is causing numerous problems, both in Lampedusa, where the Red Cross-run initial reception center is overcrowded every day, and on the high seas. The island’s mayor, Filippo Mannino, has been calling for the European Union to intervene for some time. “Europe must create a special law to address all issues affecting not only the human rights of migrants but also the rights of citizens permanently residing in Lampedusa,” he says.
A Red Cross spokeswoman indicated that “the situation is under control” and explained that around 1,000 people will remain in the facilities this Saturday as numerous transfers to other, more suitable reception centers are made. The one in Lampedusa is designed so that migrants can be identified and spend very little time in it. The spokeswoman reports that the migrants arrive “tired” after a long journey “which often doesn’t start in Libya or Tunisia” but much earlier, and that they are treated by doctors and psychologists “who listen to them and accompany them”.
The situation at sea is also critical. The rescuers are not coping, and shipwrecks have occurred in recent days. According to the four survivors, 41 people died near Lampedusa most recently after the unstable metal boat they were traveling in capsized and sank after colliding with a large wave.
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The emergency situation became clear on Friday when the Italian government, in order to stop the landings, ordered the Astral, the ship belonging to the NGO Open Arms, which had 59 shipwrecked people on board, to take the migrants to Tunisia, from where they were more likely left for Italy because they claimed there was a safe haven for them there. After the Astral’s protests, the executive authorized the landing at Porto Empedocle in Sicily. “Tunisia cannot be considered a safe landing port as it is an authoritarian regime where the rights of asylum seekers are not respected. In addition, in recent months the Tunisian government has been pursuing an xenophobic policy towards migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, who have been victims of violence and in many cases have been detained and abandoned in the desert without water or food. a spokeswoman for Open Arms.
The central Mediterranean is a hotspot these days as it is home to many migrant boats, most of which are in precarious conditions. That’s why the Italian government, in contradiction to its own regulations passed earlier this year, has for weeks been asking NGO boats to carry out multiple rescue operations, that is, to help several boats on the same voyage before leaving port. The regulation adopted by Meloni as part of his confrontation with the NGOs stipulates the opposite: that humanitarian ships carry out a single rescue per mission and return to port immediately afterwards.
However, the situation has reached such a critical point that the Italian government has been forced to ask the NGO boats for help. An example of this is the case of the Astral, which carried out seven rescue operations, all coordinated by the Italian Coast Guard, and 18 relief operations in three days. “The Italian Coast Guard alone is not able to respond to all calls from ships in trouble. The one-bailout rule imposed by the government is not applicable in practice. “The commander of a ship and also the coast guard have a duty to provide assistance in dangerous situations and possible shipwrecked people,” says the Open Arms spokesman. And it calls for “a European search and rescue mechanism that can guarantee people’s lives and respect for their rights.” “For now, Europe continues to choose the path of agreements with illiberal states,” he adds.
The high number of arrivals is also putting so much strain on the state reception system, which is currently overburdened and previously scaled back by the far-right government, that the Home Office has desperately asked regional government delegations to find 50,000 new reception places before April 15. September.
According to the International Organization for Migration, around 160 people lost their lives trying to reach the European coast in the central Mediterranean in the first days of August. So far this year, more than 2,000 migrants have died on this route, which the United Nations organization ranks as the world’s most dangerous sea crossing due to the length of the journey, which can last for days, and also “the patterns” of increasingly dangerous smuggling, Gaps in search and rescue capacity and limitations in NGO rescue work.”
According to the Interior Ministry, more than 96,000 people have arrived in Italy by sea since January; It is more than double that of the previous year in the same period and the highest value since 2017. The European border agency Frontex attributes these significant increases, among other things, to the fact that the mafias, who organize trips from Libya to the USA and Tunisia, have their prices ” in the context of strong competition between criminal groups”.
A group of migrants were rescued after disembarking at the port of Lampedusa on August 10. ELIO DESIDERIO (EFE)
Following the shipwreck near Lampedusa this week, the opposition also sharply criticized the alleged ineffectiveness of the migration deal the European Commission, brokered by Italy, signed with Tunisia last July, which envisages giving the country funds in exchange for managing the migration to make migration flows available and that Brussels wants to become a role model for other countries of origin and transit in order to curb arrivals.
The Democratic Party (PD), the 5 Star Movement (M5S) and +Europe have denounced the failure of such a pact. “What else does Meloni and the EU need to understand that the deals with Tunisia and Libya as they are being proposed are not working and the only way is through regular entry channels and a European search and rescue mission at sea?” claims the PD MEP and former Lampedusa doctor Pietro Bartolo. He is assisted by +Europe’s deputy Riccardo Magi. “The deal with Tunisia is another cash gift to the dictatorial regimes of North Africa, which have carte blanche to abandon migrants in the desert while having no effect on those making their way to Italy,” it said.
After the dramatic shipwreck of Cutro (Calabria) in February this year, in which at least 94 people died a few meters from the beach, Meloni assured that his government would ensure that nothing like this happened again and promised that Italy People will prosecute traffickers all over the world. “We are used to an Italy that was mainly responsible for finding migrants in the Mediterranean; “What this government wants to do is prosecute human traffickers around the world because we want to end human trafficking,” he said. Months later, arrivals pick up.
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