Around 200 Eritreans protest against forced ID in Lampedusa

(ANSA) - Lampedusa, January 5 - 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.