2023-09-17 08:22:57
– Arrivals continue in Lampedusa
On Sunday, 1,500 migrants were still held at the island’s reception center, designed for 400 people, transfers to Sicily are planned.
Published today at 10:22 a.m.
More than 8,000 migrants arrived in less than 24 hours in the reception center, designed for 400 people on the Italian island of Lampedusa, on September 14, 2023.
ALESSANDRO SERRANO/AFP
The arrivals of migrants on the Italian island of Lampedusa continued on Sunday as well as their transfers to Sicily and the continent, while Ursula von der Leyen and Giorgia Meloni arrived there in the morning.
The President of the European Commission and the head of the Italian government meet in this tense place where thousands of migrants arrived this week, relaunching the thorny debate on the sharing of responsibilities within the European Union.
“There are around 1,500 people this morning in the reception center” on the island, with a capacity of 400 people, “and transfers during the day are planned” to Sicily and the continent , said on Sunday the Italian Red Cross (CRI) which manages this center.
Large NGO ships, such as the Geo Barrents of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) which rescued nearly 500 migrants in 11 operations, are directed to major Italian ports.
But dozens of small boats continue their crossing of the Mediterranean, mainly coming from Tunisia in recent weeks, and arrive directly in Lampedusa where the migrant management system has found itself on the verge of asphyxiation.
Conference call
Between Monday and Wednesday, around 8,500 people, more than the entire population of Lampedusa, arrived aboard 199 boats, according to figures from the United Nations migration agency.
This migration crisis has been the subject of intense diplomatic activity for three days. A conference call on Saturday brought together the French, Italian and German interior ministers, a representative of the Spanish presidency of the Council of the European Union and EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson.
The conference was proposed by French Minister Gérald Darmanin, who had already met on Friday morning with his Italian counterpart, Matteo Piantedosi, and German, Nancy Faeser.
Gérald Darmanin will also go to Lampedusa “in the coming days”, Giorgia Meloni and President Emmanuel Macron agreed on Saturday, promising to “strengthen cooperation at the European level (…) to find effective, immediate and longer-term solutions to this crisis,” according to Paris.
Located less than 150 km from the Tunisian coast, Lampedusa is one of the first stopover points for migrants crossing the Mediterranean hoping to reach Europe. Every year during the summer, tens of thousands of them take to the sea on makeshift boats.
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