The first 250 people have boarded a
ship that has been sent to the southern Italian island of
Lampedusa to quarantine migrants amid the coronavirus emergency.
A upswing in the number of migrant-boat landings from North
Africa has put facilities in Italy under strain, especially
given the need for arrivals to go into quarantine.
Several cases of large groups of migrants under quarantine
running away from the facilities hosting them have caused
widespread concern.
The first migrants to board the quarantine ship, the Gnv
Azzurra, were Tunisians.
The ship has room for 1,000 people.
The migrant hotspot at Lampedusa is badly overcrowded.
The migrants are boarding the quarantine ship in groups of 10.
In Puglia, meanwhile, a 15-metre boat with 84 asylum seekers on
got stranded after hitting rocks off Gallipoli.
A finance police-port authority unit intervened.
The boat had several families from Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Egypt
and Pakistan on board.
Premier Giuseppe Conte on Monday promised that his government
will adopt a tough stance on migrant arrivals.
"You cannot enter Italy in this way, especially in this acute
phase (of the COVID-19 emergency,)" Conte said during a visit to
Cerignola in Puglia.
"We cannot allow the international community to be exposed to
additional uncontrollable dangers. "There are migrants who try
to flee from health surveillance.
"We cannot allow it. We must be tough and inflexible. "We cannot
tolerate people entering Italy in an illegal way.
"We cannot allow the sacrifices the country made due to the
COVID-19 crisis to be rendered in vain.
"We must intensify repatriations".
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