A statement by immigration authorities, published this Monday on the website of La Repubblica newspaper and other local news outlets, indicates that a boat carrying 46 people was rescued near that island, the southernmost point of Italy, early this morning. on board, one of them lifeless.
This death comes on top of that of a 30-year-old young woman from Ivory Coast who lost her life last Sunday at the Imbriacola reception center with a capacity of about 300 people and this weekend more than three weeks in a house a thousand what in triggered a serious crisis in this city.
Flavio Di Giacomo, spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), after hearing the news of the Ivorian’s death, lamented that it was the “third tragedy of this kind in a few months inside the centre”, which also killed two children … in recent weeks.
On February 19, about 848 people arrived on the coast of Lampedusa in 17 boats, adding 82 who disembarked a few hours ago, mainly from Egypt, Sudan, Pakistan, Cameroon, Congo, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone.
The migrants came mainly from the African coasts of Sfax in Tunisia and the Libyan cities of Zuwara and El-Agelat.
In Italy, 4,959 irregular migrants disembarked in January this year, the highest monthly number since 2016, according to an Interior Ministry report.
That number represents an increase of more than 60.0 percent from the 3,035 registered arrivals in the same period last year, while the number of arrivals in 2021 was just 1,039, the report adds.
In 2022, 104,000 migrants arrived in this country, a number much higher than the 67,000 the previous year and three times higher than those registered in 2020, according to official figures.
jf/ort