A daily drama: more than 4,000 migrants arrive on the coasts of Italy during the weekend

Lampedusa Island is the main destination for the boats, mostly from Tunisia.

More than 4,000 migrants arrived on the Italian coast this weekend, with the island of Lampedusa as the main destination for the boats, mostly from Tunisia, which have saturated the reception capacity of some of its ports.

The Italian Coast Guard located the lifeless bodies of four people after two small boats capsized on Saturday in waters near the island of Malta, where they had already located seven other bodies, local press reported.

Italy and Malta saw how the number of boats traveling in precarious conditions through the central Mediterranean has multiplied, while Tunisia claims to have stopped the departure of more than 70 boats in the midst of a wave that has not stopped for weeks and that has left, at least thirty deaths on the Tunisian coast.

On the island of Lampedusa alone there are more than 2,400 people in a reception center with a capacity for 400, after the successive landings of small boats, motorboats and fishing vessels that have been arriving in the last 48 hours, Rai public television reported.

One of the people rescued by the Life Support of the NGO Emergency. Photo EFE

Transfers

Some 200 migrants are being transferred to the island of Sicily, while another ship left with 600 passengers bound for the Calabria region, in the southern Italian peninsula.

“Lampedusa continues to do what it has been doing for 30 years, with great difficulty but also with great humility, which is to save human lives and give dignity to all of Europe that continues to look on helplessly,” said the mayor of Lampedusa, Filippo Mannino, in statements to Italian television.

In the peninsular territory, in the Calabria region (south), another 550 migrants arrived on Friday afternoon, most of whom disembarked in Crotone, the town where 91 people died a month ago after a shipwreck.

The Doctors Without Borders (MSF) ship, the Geo Barents, arrived this afternoon at the port of Bari (south) after rescuing 190 migrants, and another ship, the Life Support of the NGO Emergency, helped 161 people in three different rescues. during the day yesterday.

In addition, the ship “Ocean Viking”, from the NGO SOS Mediterranee, denounced that it had to stop its rescue operations after being threatened with shots into the air by the Libyan coast guard in international waters.

mass arrival

Another humanitarian ship, the “Louise Michel”, financed by the British artist Banksy, denounced this Sunday that it is being held by the Italian authorities on the island of Lampedusa without having received a “written justification”.

More than 4,000 migrants arrived on Italian shores this weekend. Photo EFE

The ship participated on Saturday in the rescue of some 300 migrants who were traveling aboard seven boats to which the Finance Guard also provided assistance, in an operation that would have infringed the new immigration decree of the Italian Government, since it prevents the boats from humanitarians perform more than one rescue before requesting port assignment.

Given the situation, the Italian Foreign Minister and Vice President, Antonio Tajani, stated during a speech at a political school in Milan: “Often we face an emergency alone, but alone we are not capable of dealing with a situation like the current one “.

So far this year, more than 25,000 immigrants have landed on the Italian coast, more than triple the 6,500 in the same period of 2022, according to official data.

Source: EFE

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