About 200 Eritrean migrants
who reached the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa on December 24
staged a protest on Tuesday against the obligation to provide
digital fingerprint identification.
The European Commission has urged Italy to ensure that
migrants' fingerprints are taken, by force if necessary, and to
hold anyone who resists attempts at identification.
Eritreans are among the migrants most likely to refuse to be
identified upon arrival, forensic police chief Daniela
Stradiotto told a parliamentary commission in September last
year.
The protesting Eritreans marched on Tuesday from a
Lampedusa reception centre to a central square where police
officers are monitoring the rally.
EU regulation requires immigrants' asylum applications to
be handled by the country they first reach. But many migrants do
not wish to stay in Italy, rather they are hoping to reach
countries such as Germany, Sweden and Britain.
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