First 250 migrants board Lampedusa quarantine ship

(ANSA) - ROME, 04 AGO - 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". (ANSA).