Irregular immigrants continue to arrive in Lampedusa Island, Italy’s closest land piece to Africa.
According to the news of the Italian ANSA agency, the number of irregular migrants who reached the Island by their own means or were rescued by the Italian Coast Guard teams and brought to the Island during the day was 1232. Thus, the number of immigrants in the migrant reception center with a limited capacity has exceeded 2500.
It was reported that the last migrant boats reaching Lampedusa generally departed from Tunisia.
According to the data of the Ministry of Interior, the number of irregular migrants arriving in Italy from the sea since the beginning of the year has reached 107,530. In the same period of last year, this number was 52 thousand 954.
Meanwhile, Italian President Sergio Mattarella, in his speech at the closing of the annual conference of “Comunione e Liberazione”, one of the Catholic communities, called “Meetings in Rimini”, said that different paths should be followed in policies aimed at combating immigration.
Mattarella called for the European Union (EU) to approach the issue of migration with a concrete and permanent commitment and to support the countries of origin of migration.
Irregular migration problem in the Central Mediterranean
In the irregular migration influx to Europe, the Central Mediterranean route stands out as one of the routes where intense mobility has been observed in recent years.
On this route, European non-governmental organizations usually rescue irregular migrants who call for help at sea, rather than European government officials. These NGOs have difficulties in evacuating the irregular migrants they rescue from time to time due to the EU member states’ failure to provide a “safe haven”.
The first place where migrants who are able to cross the Mediterranean or be rescued by their own means set foot in Europe is Lampedusa Island, which is the closest land part of Italy to North Africa.
Every year, large numbers of irregular migrants die trying to cross the Mediterranean because of boat capsizing or lack of water and air due to overcrowding on the boats.