A flood of arrivals through the Tunisian route on the Italian coasts, where in Lampedusa in a few hours twenty landings of over nine hundred shipwrecked people were recorded, while the Coast Guard has operated rescue operations in the Sar area also in the Ionian Sea and the Geo Barents of Médecins Sans Frontières has recovered other refugees in the Mediterranean.
A thousand migrants have arrived (another 190 arriving in Bari in the next few hours) in Italy on board boats, rescued by the Italian authorities or by NGOs within half a day. But there are also those who, as happened a few weeks ago in Calabrian waters, didn’t make it. Off the Tunisian coast, thirty-four migrants from sub-Saharan African countries are missing after the boat they were traveling on sank: on the boat, reported by Alarm phone informed by a relative of a migrant on board, there were 38 people, four of whom managed to save themselves thanks to the intervention of the local authorities. According to what was reported by Alarm phone, the migrants reported being beaten by the Tunisian coast guard who also removed the engine from the boat.
Now the route for almost everyone is that of Tunisia, which has fallen into a serious economic situation and political tension: the fears of the European Union and the Italian government are concentrated on the country, ready to increase efforts to favor a return to the stability of the state Maghreb, stopping the vertiginous increase in migratory flows. Almost all the boats arriving on the Sicilian island departed from the port city of Sfax and all say they paid three thousand Tunisian dinars for the journey.
Tunisia, Meloni: ‘Support is needed to avoid migration crisis’
The migrants, several of whom are women and minors, are originally from Congo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Guinea, Sierra Leone, Syria, Tunisia, Morocco and Burkina Faso. To prevent the contrada Imbriacola hotspot (there were 966 new arrivals) from becoming overcrowded again, the prefecture of Agrigento in agreement with the Interior Ministry has already arranged for the transfer of hundreds of people by ferry to Porto Empedocle. The boats of the Guardia di Finanza and Guardia Costiera rescued the boats in various operations, lasting hours and with vehicles engaged in the water since the night. The latter was also struggling with rescues in the Ionian Sea, where two fishing boats with migrants were identified in the Italian Sar area, rescued by four patrol boats, the Diciotti ship, the Aringhieri ship and an airplane. Another 190 people were then rescued off the Mediterranean by the Médecins Sans Frontières team after the boat they were traveling on was stabilized by the humanitarian vessel Louise Michel. The refugees were made to board the Geo Barents, to which the Italian authorities soon assigned Bari as a port of disembarkation. The ship is headed north and approximately two and a half days of navigation are expected to reach the port. The first sanction against a non-governmental organization after the introduction of the so-called NGO decree was taken last month against the ship of Doctors Without Borders for “not having provided all the information requested during” the navigation which had ended with a landing in Ancona. In recent hours, the issue of migrants has also been discussed in Berlin, at the summit of interior ministers of Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Spain and Sweden, where the Italian government has asked to support the commitment for a common line on update of the European Pact for asylum and migration by the spring of 2024, which as it is formulated risks being penalizing for countries of first arrival such as Italy. But the request is also to review the mechanisms for relocating new arrivals, given that since June last year, out of 8,200 migrants to be relocated, only 480 have been redistributed among other countries.
ANSA Agency
3 merchant ships and a Frontex patrol vessel are also on site for assistance. (HANDLE)
But the request is also to review the mechanisms for relocating new arrivals, given that since June last year, out of 8,200 migrants to be relocated, only 480 have been redistributed among other countries.
