Matteo Salvini, leader of
anti-immigrant, anti-euro Northern League party, visited the
Cara refugee reception centre at Mineo near Catania on Friday
and called for its closure.
The centre has been in the spotlight in recent days after
one of its residents was arrested at the weekend in connection
with the killing of a couple in their home in Palagonia, and the
suspected rape of one of the victims.
"Even the bishops' newspaper, the 5-Star Movement and Forza
Italia are calling for the closure of the Cara (centre),"
Salvini said.
"All that's left are the baby Jesus and martians to call
for closing this out-in-the-open shame, whose management has
involved even the cooperatives of Rome's Mafia Capitale".
Salvini said the centre was inaugurated by his party
colleague Roberto Maroni as a temporary measure during the war
in Libya, and questioned whether all of its residents were
actual political refugees requesting asylum.
"This is the fourth time I've come here. I don't know how
many other investigations, how many other interventions and
murders and disasters still have to happen to close the Cara di
Mineo. Here hundreds of millions of euros have been thrown
away," he said.
"Today I'm going to ask the nationality of the residents
and we'll see how many of the resident immigrants are truly
fleeing from war," Salvini said.
Salvini said the migrant crisis could be resolved by
"speeding up procedures to identify true refugees and deporting
all of those who aren't actual asylum seekers".
"But landings in Sicily and Calabria also have to be
blocked, and there needs to be action taken in Africa," Salvini
said.
He said he'll be going to Nigeria in the coming weeks "to
understand what needs to be done so that Nigerians stay in their
country".
Prior to his arrival at the Mineo center, Salvini tweeted
his disapproval of European leaders' handling of the immigrant
crisis.
"Europe will punish member states that don't welcome
immigrants enough? Clowns. The umpteenth proof that this Europe
is a dangerous cage," he tweeted.
"The PD secretary and Alfano are two incompetents glued to
their chairs. Where are they? I don't see Renzi and Alfano, I
didn't see them in Palagonia: if I were them I'd be ashamed,"
Salvini said prior to his visit, referring to Italy's prime
minister and interior minister, respectively.
Then, in direct response to a comment made by Alfano on
Thursday that Salvini is a "jackal," Salvini said, "the real
jackals are those who cry over deaths that could have been
avoided".
"The EU and Italy have an embargo against the Syrian
government and are accomplices to the ISIS massacres. Those
images should wake up the consciences of those who pretend to be
good but are actually true assassins," Salvini said.
The images he referred to were photos distributed on social
media in recent days of a three-year-old Syrian boy who washed
up on a Turkish beach after drowning in an attempt to flee Syria
with his family.
Salvini also called European leaders "ridiculous" and said
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's "best effort is to say 'I'll
take the Syrians', the only people who are fleeing war, as if to
say, 'I choose who I want and you can keep the rest," he said.
Upon leaving the centre, Salvini came out strongly against
the idea of opening humanitarian corridors in Syria to allow for
safe passage of refugees.
"Yes, there's a war there, there 40% of the territory is
occupied by the Islamic caliphate, so there, truly, you'd need
to intervene with bombs to exterminate those beasts," he said.
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