Lampedusa Island is the main destination for the boats, mostly from Tunisia.
More than 4,000 migrants They arrived on the Italian coast this weekend, with the island of Lampedusa as the main destination for the boats, mostly from Tunisia, which have saturated the reception capacity of some of its ports.
The Italian Coast Guard found the dead bodies of four people after two small boats sank on Saturday in waters near the island of Malta, where they had already located seven other bodies, the local press reported.
Italy and Malta saw how the number of ships traveling in precarious conditions through the central Mediterranean has multipliedwhile Tunisia claims to have stopped the departure of more than 70 boats in the midst of a wave that has not ceased for weeks and that has left at least thirty people dead on the Tunisian coast.
Only on the island of Lampedusa there are more than 2,400 people in a reception center with a capacity for 400, after the successive landings of small boats, boats and fishing vessels that have been arriving in the last 48 hours, reported Rai public television.
Transfers
Some 200 migrants are being transferred to the island of Sicily, while another ship departed with 600 passengers bound for the region of Calabria, in the south of the Italian peninsula.
“Lampedusa continues to do what it has been doing for 30 years, with great difficulty but also with great humility, which is to save lives human rights and give dignity to all of Europe that continues to watch helplessly”, said the mayor of Lampedusa, Filippo Mannino, in statements to Italian television.
On mainland territory, in the Calabria region (south), another 550 migrants arrived on Friday afternoonmost of which landed in Crotone, the town where 91 people died a month ago after a shipwreck.
The Doctors Without Borders (MSF) ship, the Geo Barents, arrived this afternoon at the port of Bari (south) after rescuing 190 migrants, and another ship, the Life Support of the NGO Emergency, helped 161 people in three different rescues. during the day yesterday.
In addition, the ship “Ocean Viking”, belonging to the NGO SOS Mediterranee, denounced that had to stop its operations after being threatened with fire in the air by the Libyan coast guard in international waters.
mass arrival
Another humanitarian ship, the “Louise Michel”, financed by the British artist Banksy, denounced this Sunday that remains in custody by the Italian authorities on the island of Lampedusa without having received a “written justification”.
The ship participated on Saturday in the rescue of some 300 migrants who were traveling aboard seven boats to which the Finance Guard also provided assistance, in an operation that would have violated the new immigration decree of the Italian Governmentsince it prevents that humanitarian ships perform more than one rescue before requesting a port assignment.
Given the situation, the Italian Foreign Minister and Vice President, Antonio Tajani, stated during a speech at a political school in Milan: “Often we face an emergency alone, but alone we are not capable of dealing with a situation like the current one “.
So far this year they have already disembarked more than 25,000 immigrants on the Italian coasts, more than triple the 6,500 in the same period of 2022, according to official data.
Source: EFE
PB