The situation of immigrants in the Lampedusa reception center has become “unsustainable” and the European Union (EU) needs to intervene, Italian Economic Development Minister Adolfo Urso said on Sunday.
“The situation in Lampedusa is in sight, but it is Europe that must help Italy to manage it in the best way,” Urso told reporters after a visit to the center and the Favarolo pier, where most of the migrants disembark. And the refugees arrive. on the small island of Sicily.
“The situation here is unsustainable and solutions must be found to reduce [o número de chegadas]on the one hand, and further strengthen the existing conditions [para as gerir]on the other,” added the ruler.
The Favarolo pier is littered with fuel drums taken from abandoned migrant boats, clothing, shoes and thermal blankets, as small boats wait in the water to be dismantled.
The Lampedusa reception center had a total of 4,267 immigrants and refugees this Sunday morning, after the arrival of 2,172 people in 55 arrivals on Saturday and another 208 in four arrivals since midnight on Sunday.
Throughout the day, the systematic transfer of refugees is expected to continue, with a first group of 550 people leaving on a passenger ferry in the morning and another, of 140 people, then on military planes in the late afternoon/evening.
The only reception center on the small Italian island of Lampedusa (south), with a capacity for just 400 people, was filled on Saturday with some 4,000 immigrants, after a night of incessant landings in the central Mediterranean.
Since then, the authorities have been working on solutions to alleviate the situation, transferring these people to other parts of the country on boats, according to local media reports.
Favored by the good weather conditions at sea during the summer, the migratory flow between North Africa and southern Italy and Europe has been maintained.
Source: TSF
