Rome – Six thousand migrants in Italy, twelve thousand in the Canary Islands. These surprising numbers of arrivals for the first two months of the year released in the latest report would be enough Frontex to certify that something has changed in the migratory flows towards Europe. The central Mediterranean route, which was exploding last year, with Lampedusa taken by storm and 155,000 landings in Italy, has suddenly emptied out, with a trend (reaching -70%) which seems to have consolidated from October to today . And even the land route from the Balkans (also the one with strong growth in 2023), today marks -65% with just 3,000 arrivals since the beginning of the year.
The deadliest route in the world
Which does not mean at all that migration to Europe has slowed down. Arrivals – they explain from Frontex – are at the same level as the same period last year, around 31,000 units. These are the flows that have found another path, on the very dangerous route from the coasts of Senegal and Mauritania towards the Canary Islands: 800 kilometers on the Atlantic, in the open sea, without any humanitarian or state rescue fleet, which the migrants face on old dugout canoes into which traffickers cram hundreds of people. A route, needless to say, with a very high number of deaths, almost 200 from January to today.
«In recent months, criminal groups involved in human trafficking in Mauritania have quickly seized the opportunities offered by the increased demand from sub-Saharan migrants transiting their country seeking to enter the European Union via the Canary Islands« , they explain from Frontex. With the push back towards the desert of thousands of migrants left to die beyond the southern borders of Tunisia, the criminal organizations quickly adapted, channeling thousands of people fleeing from sub-Saharan Africa to Senegal and Mauritania and making agreements with the fishermen of the two Countries that have found it much more profitable to put their pirogues at the service of human trafficking.
And so the microscopic island of El Hierro, an outpost of Europe in the Atlantic Ocean, was transformed into the Lampedusa of the Canary Islands, ringing a strong alarm bell in Brussels too, so much so that the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyentogether with the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchezrushed to Mauritania promising 210 million in aid in exchange for a brake on flows.
The risk of the human tide fleeing from Sudan
In short, the Tunisia method extended to the new crisis area to which Egypt could also be added, a country that Italy and Europe are closely following in fear that masses of thousands of people fleeing from Sudan will flock there, as per the alarm of the intelligence.
A risk that Giorgia Meloni he doesn’t intend to run. Less than three months before the European elections, the Prime Minister intends to hold on to that -70% on the central Mediterranean route which until five months ago seemed like a mirage. Trusting that the agreements with the Tunisian president Said have been fully implemented and prevent the resumption of the journeys of tin boats to Lampedusa, the spotlight has once again turned on Libya, which has once again become the departure base for boats with migrants coming not only from sub-Saharan Africa but also from Egypt where thousands of people from Middle Eastern countries easily arrive by plane.
The input to the Interior Ministry: stop the NGOs in view of the European elections
Hence the input to the Interior Ministry: to curb departures from Libya and above all to keep the humanitarian fleet away from the Mediterranean which, in recent months, has once again become the main means of disembarkation in Italy for migrants rescued at sea. This is why, suddenly, in recent weeks the Ministry of the Interior has decided to apply recidivism (provided for by the Cutro decree) to NGOs, accusing them of not having collaborated with the Libyan coast guard. Result: ships blocked in Italian ports (at the moment there are three stopped) no longer for the canonical 20 days, but now for 60. And the Mediterranean is increasingly without help. He says Cecilia Strada, spokesperson for Resq People: «The Italian government ignores the recent ruling of the Supreme Court which declared it a crime to bring migrants back to Libya and detains the humanitarian ships, accusing them of having taken people away from the Libyans who shoot at the refugees at sea. Simply shameful.”
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– 2024-03-29 03:02:49
