2y ago

Italy's Lampedusa pleads for help after thousands of migrant arrivals

www.reuters.com

The small Italian island of Lampedusa is being overwhelmed by the number of migrants arriving on its shores, its mayor said on Thursday, after thousands of people landed from North Africa on flimsy boats over the past two days.

9 comments

We know migrants are coming, why is it always an emergency every year?
The pacts with north African countries have been historically ethically disgusting and practically not very useful, why do we keep drafting them?
So infuriating!
Then Salvini wanting no EU, unless it benefits him… such a beacon of morality /s
- Because paying terrorist organizations in civil war countries and calling them "Libyan coast guard", for seizing people and selling them into slavery is so much more convenient, than having to adress how our lost colonial practises keep causing trouble that leads to people fleeing and risking their lifes like this. The alternative would be billionaires in Europe to make less billions. That would be unacceptable.
  
  How could we ever accept inconvenience or less billion-rich billionaires!
- Let's not pretend the itialian government doesn't create these inhumane conditions deliberately, in hopes of spreading stories of a cruel & not quite so rich Europe to prevent further migration. They do this because they are desperate, because there burocracy can't cope with so many people.
  In an ideal world they would be distributed accross Europe. Moving 7000 people a day is no problem with good public infrastructure. But such treaties exists only in talks for decades. Not the number of people seeking refuge are responsible for the situation on Lampedusa, but the European governments who simply don't care, even though such a treaty would be a direct consequence of a single border Europe.
  
  Then transfer them to the mainland. Emergency resolved.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Lampedusa sits in the Mediterranean between Tunisia, Malta and the larger Italian island of Sicily and is a first port of call for many migrants seeking to reach the European Union.
A total of 387 migrants disembarked from nine craft on Thursday, Italian news agency Agi reported, adding that they were believed to have sailed from the Tunisian port of Sfax.
Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini decried a lack of support from fellow EU members, calling the arrivals "an act of war" and "the death of Europe".
Preliminary data from Spain, another country on the EU's southern flank, showed the number of migrant arrivals to the Canary Islands more than trebled to 2,891 people in the first two weeks of September.
It added: "Increased migratory pressure may persist in the coming months with smugglers offering lower prices departing from Libya and Tunisia amid fierce competition among the criminal groups."
Italy has sought to improve ties with Tunisia and in July Tunis and the European Union signed a pact aimed at stemming migrant flows but that has had no immediate impact.
The original article contains 668 words, the summary contains 180 words. Saved 73%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

9 comments