According to the Ministry of the Interior, as of September 11, 2023, 116,028 migrants have landed in Italy, more than twice as many as in the same period in 2022 (63,498). Photo: EFE.
The Italian island of Lampedusa recorded a record number of landings this Tuesday, with more than 2,800 migrants on board around 70 boats.
Local media emphasize that this is the largest number of boats to have arrived on the island in a single day.
In the afternoon, the Italian authorities’ ship Diciotti rescued about 800 people in the Mediterranean, who will be transported to other ports to avoid overloading the Lampedusa identification center, which has a capacity of 400 people.
“We have around 2,800 people at the access point and another 300 at the Favarolo dock (of Lampedusa) waiting to get off the boats, accompanied by the patrol boats of the financial guard and the captain’s office,” reported the police commissioner. from the Sicilian city of Agrigento, Emanuele Ricifari.
The mayor of Lampedusa, Filippo Mannino, asked the Italian executive for help.
“This has never been seen before, with dozens and dozens of small boats being escorted by or attached to the rescue units outside the harbor and others managing to arrive directly,” he said.
Mannino noted: “Today we will probably reach 100 landings, numbers that are no longer sustainable on this island.” “We need the defense to intervene.”
Among the people who arrived in Lampedusa are women and minors, but the majority are adult men from sub-Saharan Africa who left the city of Sfax, Tunisia, paying between 1,000 and 5,000 Tunisian dinars.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, as of September 11, 2023, 116,028 migrants have landed in Italy, more than twice as many as in the same period in 2022 (63,498).
(With information from EFE)