The Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), António Guterres, appealed this Wednesday to “European solidarity” and called for effective mechanisms to combat migratory flows from North Africa to Europe.
“It is essential to assume the concept of European responsibility, because the effort cannot only focus on border countries,” said Guterres during a press conference in New York to present his priorities for the High Level Week of the United Nations General Assembly. , which starts next week.
The Secretary General insisted that this is not a problem exclusive to the countries that receive these migratory flows, but rather to the entire European continent, which is why he called for the creation of effective mechanisms to share this pressure.
Guterres’ statements come a few hours after the island of Lampedusa, in Italy, reached a new historical record for the arrival of immigrants in a single day (between six thousand and seven thousand, according to different estimates).
The large number of arrivals ended up saturating the local infrastructure, where on Tuesday there was a traffic jam of boats waiting to disembark on the small Sicilian island.
The Lampedusa reception center (‘hotspot’), with capacity for 400 people, is completely overcrowded, with around 6,000 migrants.
Guterres acknowledged that some of these migrants arrive for humanitarian reasons, so these people should be considered refugees, while others do so in hopes of improving their economic prospects.
The representative stressed that this distinction is important, highlighting, however, that in both cases “human rights” must be respected.
Although the figures are constantly evolving, so far this year 123,863 immigrants have landed in Italy, almost double the 65,517 of the same period in 2022 and triple that of 2021 (41,286), according to updated data from the Ministry of the Interior.
In Spain, 21,025 people entered this year, the majority (40%) in the summer months.
The Deputy Prime Minister of Italy, Matteo Salvini, today regretted the situation on the island of Lampedusa, maintaining that such a scenario is a demonstration of the “failure of Europe.”
“What is happening in Lampedusa and today in Strasbourg is simply the failure of Europe to reach an agreement with the socialists,” said the leader of the League (far-right party), speaking at the Press Association Foreigner in Rome.
And he added: “The landings (of immigrants) are the symbol of a non-existent, distant, distracted and complicit Europe, which abandons countries when it comes to facing problems.”
Italy, Greece, Spain and Malta are recognized as “front line” countries in terms of arrivals of irregular migrants to Europe.
Source: TSF
