Over 20,000 migrants enter Italy so far in 2014

(ANSA) - Rome, April 15 - More than 20,500 migrants have landed on the Italian coast so far this year, as compared to 2,500 during the same period of the previous year, Interior Minister Angelino Alfano told parliament on Tuesday. Speaking before a committee on the country's borders, Alfano stressed that the number of incoming migrants was on pace "to reach the record levels of 2011, when more than 62,000 people entered". The minister also said that in 2013 there were 27,000 asylum applications; while in the first three months of 2014, they have already exceeded 13,000, with a 140% increase compared to the same period last year. Fewer than one third of all migrants are forced to turn back at the border, he added. In order to cope with the high number of requests, Alfano said he intends to set up a commission for the examination of asylum applications in each Italian prefecture, thus moving from the current 20 to over 100. Alfano then recalled that operation Mare Nostrum, a coordinated effort launched last October to spot and save migrants at sea, have saved 19,000 people.
    "And no one can say how many would have died without the mission, but it is hard to imagine that they would all be alive," he said.
    Mare Nostrum was launched after roughly 400 migrants died in successive boat accidents off the coast of Sicily last fall.
    The interior minister said that Mare Nostrum cost over nine million euros per month and stressed that "Europe's further involvement is essential".