A recent rescue operation off the Sicilian coast
(ANSAmed) - ROME, - The issue of migration should be dealt with in an ''integrated'' manner, is the message sent by the launch conference of the EU-Horn of Africa Migration Route Initiative (Khartoum Process) held Thursday and Friday in Rome.
Actions should not be limited to emergency measures - and should instead aim to develop the economies of the countries the migrants originate from and resolve the local crises resulting in migration - was the consensus reached.
Participating were the 28 EU member states alongside Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Tunisia: the African nations from which most migration originates or through which it passes.
Italy's foreign minister, Paolo Gentiloni, said that ''there is no silver bullet in terms of security or economic cooperation or resolution of local conflicts resulting in migratory flows. There is a phenomenon that, if managed well especially at the humanitarian level, presents an opportunity.''
Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said that the EU and several African nations had agreed to creating ''refugee camps for the selection of those who actually have the right to asylum'' in the countries of origin.The aim, he said, is to ''counter the activities of traffickers, true merchants of death'', and to put an end to the ''most macabre travel agency in history'' as well as ''initiate more balanced distribution of asylum seekers across all of Europe''.
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini was in attendance and pledged to move forward with the initiative in the future. (ANSAmed).
