A total of 619 migrants arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa in the last 24 hours, while another 119 people rescued by the humanitarian ship “Sea Watch5” are expected to disembark in the next few hours at the port of Marina di Carrara, in the central Italy. .
In the last 24 hours there were 17 landings, the last during the night, when 137 migrants arrived on the island of Lampedusa aboard three seven-meter long boats carrying 68, 15 and 54 people, the press reported this Wednesday. Italian.
The two largest groups, made up of Bengalis, Egyptians, Eritreans, Pakistanis, Syrians and Ethiopians, told members of the humanitarian organization that rescued them that they had left Zuara (Libya), after paying six thousand euros, while the group of 15 immigrants He claimed to have set sail on Tuesday morning from Sfax (Tunisia), a trip that cost each person 1,500 euros.
On Tuesday, 14 landings were also recorded, with a total of 482 immigrants.
In the next few hours the ship “Sea Watch5” will also arrive in Marina di Carrara, which on December 24 rescued 119 migrants in the waters of the central Mediterranean.
The non-governmental organization (NGO) that manages the ship, the German Sea Watch, regretted that the Italian authorities had sent them to such a distant port.
“It is about 1,150 kilometers away. The objective of these distant ports is to keep rescue ships away from the area of operations so that they cannot save other people in difficulty,” criticized the NGO.
Meanwhile, the ship of the Spanish NGO Open Arms is also heading to the Central Mediterranean for a new migrant rescue operation.
According to data updated on December 22, 153,677 migrants have already reached Italian shores this year, half of whom have been rescued unaided and the other half by Italian patrol boats.
The number of migrants who were helped by humanitarian rescue ships did not reach 6,000.
According to the spokesperson for the Mediterranean Coordination Office of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Flavio di Giacomo, “2,271 people died this year in the central Mediterranean, 60% more than in the same period last year (1,413). “.
The central Mediterranean migratory route runs mainly from Tunisia, Algeria and Libya towards Italy and Malta and is considered one of the deadliest migratory routes in the world.
Closer to the African coast than the Italian region of Sicily, to which it administratively belongs, the small island of Lampedusa, with 20 square kilometers and around six thousand inhabitants, has become one of the main entry points to Europe for irregular migrants, mostly sub-Saharan, who cross the Mediterranean in precarious boats operated by trafficking networks.
Source: TSF
