Located about 145 kilometers from the African coast, this island received 7,000 migrants during the last two days. A number of arrivals that exceeds the island’s total population and puts its reception system in check. Faced with this migratory wave, France and Germany announced to suspend the transfer of asylum seekers from Italy.
A new wave of migration affects Lampedusa. In the last 48 hours, 7,000 migrants from Africa arrived there. This figure is higher than the number of inhabitants of the island, which reaches 6,000.
Lampedusa, the southernmost point of Italy, is located about 145 kilometers from the coast of Tunisia. It is the first port of call for people arriving from North Africa, for this reason, one of the most important reception points for migrants in Europe.
The number of boats full of migrants on the island has increased in recent days, in part, due to the summer weather conditions in the Mediterranean area. On Tuesday, September 12 alone, 5,000 migrants arrived, according to figures from the Italian Ministry of the Interior.
Only one reception center for 400 people
The island’s reception system is in check because it only has one reception center with capacity for 400 people. So women and children have been forced to sleep outside on makeshift plastic cots or wrapped in metal emergency blankets.
“We have reached a point of no return and the island is in crisis,” declared Filippo Mannino, mayor of Lampedusa, on Thursday, September 14, on the Italian radio station RTL. The day before, he himself raised the alarm with the Adnkronos news agency:
“We are all tired and exhausted, both physically and psychologically, the situation is becoming unmanageable and unsustainable”
The Red Cross, present on the island, distributes food, coverage and other basic provisions, but has difficulty serving all the migrants. “The situation is complicated and the Italian Red Cross strives to continue guaranteeing, through considerable effort, basic services to the people it assists,” declared Italian Francesca Basile, representative of the organization.
In addition, at the docks there are often clashes between the police and hundreds of migrants, who try to leave the island on their way to continental Europe.
Although the police began to transfer some of the migrants to Sicily by ferry and plane, Filippo Mannino asks for help from the Italian State and the European Union to confront the situation: “Europe and the Italian State must intervene immediately with a rapid support operation and a quick transfer of people.”
France and Germany do not want to accept more irregular migrants
Anitta Hipper, spokesperson for the European Commission, stated on Thursday, September 14, that “regarding Lampedusa, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, is in contact with the Prime Minister (of Italy), Giorgia Meloni. And this morning, Home Affairs Commissioner YIva Johansson spoke with Minister Piantedosi to assess the situation and see how the EU can help.”
However, in practice it has been difficult to achieve unity and member countries of the European Union have already taken measures to prevent the arrival of migrants from Italy to their national territories.
On Wednesday, September 13, Germany announced that it was suspending the voluntary reception of asylum seekers from Italy. A decision justified by the current “strong migratory pressure.”
Maximilian Kall, spokesman for the German Interior Ministry, also criticized Italy for not accepting asylum seekers. The Dublin regulation, which establishes EU rules on migration, says that irregular migrants are the responsibility of the first European country in which they arrive.
Of the more than 12,400 applications for reception, submitted to Italy this year until the end of August, 10 transfers have taken place so far, said Maximilian Kall
In parallel, the French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, expressed his willingness to reinforce the border between France and Italy to prevent arrivals of irregular migrants.
“We have a 100% increase in flows, which affects the Alpes-Maritimes and all the Alps,” the executive declared to the press after a visit, on Tuesday, September 12, to the Menton border post.
One of the largest migratory waves in Italy
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, elected last year on a promise to end immigration to Italy, reacted to these decisions by saying that “the issue of relocation is secondary.”
The far-right leader once again insisted that the European Union’s priority must be to reduce the flow of migrants arriving on Italian shores.
In June, the Italian prime minister visited Tunisia, along with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, promising more than $1.1 billion in financial aid to rescue its economy and better police its borders, in an effort to restore stability in the North African country, and stop migration to European coasts.
![Migrants receive help from the Red Cross outside the operational center called "Hotspot" on the Italian island of Lampedusa on September 14, 2023. (Photograph by Alessandro Serranò / AFP)](https://s.france24.com/media/display/1525ed38-534d-11ee-9c0c-005056bf30b7/lampedusa%202.jpg)
And at this moment Italy faces one of the most important migration waves in recent years. According to that country’s Ministry of the Interior, almost 124,000 migrants have arrived on its shores since the beginning of the year, approximately double the number from the same period last year. However, the numbers have not yet surpassed those of 2016, when more than 181,000 arrived in Europe, many of them from Syria, escaping the war.
With AFP, EFE and local media
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