(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 17 - European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni visited Lampedusa on Sunday after the latter invited the former to the island to see for herself the scale of the migrant emergency.
The leaders went to Lampedusa's migrant hotspot and the island's Favaloro quay, where many migrant boats from North Africa land each day. On Friday Meloni said the surge in migrant arrivals has put Italy under "unsustainable pressure".
Around 127,000 migrants have entered Italy so far this year, approximately twice as many as in the same period in 2022.
Many of them enter via Lampedusa, Italy's southernmost island.
There were moments of tension on Sunday when a group local people staged a protest that blocked the way of the convoy taking Meloni and von der Leyen from the island's airport to its migrant hotspot.
Meloni told them that "we are doing everything we can" and stressed that she had "shown up in person" to face the emergency.
Talks calmed the situation and the locals to cleared the road.
(ANSA).
Migrants: Meloni and von der Leyen visit Lampedusa
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