Italy is "proud" of its sea
search-and-rescue operation for migrants and has no plans to
stop these, cabinet Undersecretary Graziano Delrio said
Thursday.
"We are proud of Mare Nostrum (our sea), which has rescued
39,000 people so far," Delrio told the Senate.
That has almost exceeded the total number of migrants for
all of 2013.
"I would like to point out that 80% of them have the
prerequisites to be considered asylum seekers, not illegal
immigrants", Delrio added.
He was responding to a Senate motion calling for an exit
strategy from Mare Nostrum, which they say "in no way
constitutes a definitive solution" to the migrant problem.
The government has come under fire over the rescue
operation, which some opposition parties say is encouraging
human traffickers to increase illegal crossings.
Delrio said the government of Premier Matteo Renzi is
working to get greater support for the rescue missions as well
as subsequent care of migrants once they arrive in Italy, often
the first port for migrants heading for other parts of Europe.
"We are absolutely in agreement with many elements
contained in the motions, on the need to improve and go beyond
Mare Nostrum," said Delrio.
"We must make it a fully European effort, and no longer
just an emergency mission", Delrio added.
Mare Nostrum was established last October, after almost 400
people drowned in two migrant boat shipwrecks off the coast of
Lampedusa.
The Italian government has struggled to house and care for
the tens of thousands of migrants who are arriving, and agencies
including the United Nations have said that Monday that Italy
must be given more help to cope.
Renzi has accused the European Union of looking the other
way and not doing enough to help Italy after dozens of people
were killed in two new migrant disasters in May.
"Europe explains everything about how to catch swordfish,
but it turns its head when we go to rescue people in trouble,"
he said.
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