Almost 1,200 asylum seekers landed
in Sicily Friday, bringing to almost 2,000 the latest in a wave
of new arrivals swollen by good weather and a sweeping new
rescue operation launched after 400 migrants drowned in tow
disasters last year.
An Italian Navy ship, part of the major Mare Nostrum
search-and-rescue ops, reached the port of Augusta where the
1,170 migrants will disembark and be processed.
The migrants, from various North African countries, were
picked up Thursday close to the stepping-stone island of
Lampedusa.
Mare Nostrum is credited with saving almost all lives of
the recent migrants who brave the perilous crossing towards a
better life in Europe.
But Italy says it will be overwhelmed by almost one million
desperate people massing on the North African shores, and has
made the umpteenth appeal to the EU for help in coping with the
emergency.
Separately Thursday, more than 300 North African asylum
seekers were rescued south of Sicily and taken to the port of
Messina.
Earlier Friday the Navy rescued 358 migrants in the
Sicilian Channel between Italy and Africa.
The migrants, who are bidding for refugee status, included
43 women, one of them pregnant, and 24 children.
The asylum seekers said they came from Mali, Ghana,
Belize, Niger, Sudan, Syria and the Palestinian Territories.
Earlier this week Italy said "at least 800,000" migrants
are about to leave the North African coast for Europe, while the
reception system in Italy - the first landing point for the vast
majority of these - is already on the brink of collapse from
tens of thousands of earlier arrivals.
"We no longer have a place to take them, and locals are
overwhelmed by the constant arrival of foreigners," Giovanni
Pinto, head of the Immigration and Border Police agency, told a
joint meeting of the foreign and defence committees in the
Italian Senate.
As many as 25,000 migrants have landed on Italian shores to
date this year, almost a ten-fold increase over the 2,500
reported during the same period in 2013 and nearing 2011's
record levels of 62,000 migrants, Interior Minister Angelino
Alfano said earlier this month.
That has stretched already-strained resources in Italy,
which only emerged from its deepest recession since the Second
World War late last year, to the breaking point, particularly as
it comes after record-breaking levels of migration in 2013.
Italy is appealing for international help in the face of
the waves of newcomers fleeing their homelands in numbers that
tend to increase in spring and summer months as sea conditions
improve.
"Europe should know that Italy is a welcoming country, but
we cannot accommodate everyone," Alfano said.
He added that 200 human traffickers believed to be
responsible for smuggling thousands across the sea to Italy in
dangerous conditions have been arrested.
One day earlier, Premier Matteo Renzi vowed to request more
assistance from the European Union and the United Nations on
tackling undocumented immigration during a special meeting of
his cabinet to consider emergency migrant issues.
Part of the problem, said Pinto, is that many migrants who
land in Italy are fleeing failed governments in Libya, civil war
in Syria, and hostilities in other parts of the Middle East and
North Africa.
That means the Italian government has no corresponding
authorities to turn to for help in returning the migrants.
"We aren't dealing with a government that can establish
treaties," said Pinto, refering to the case of Libya in
particular.
"We have no interlocutors...There's no prime
minister...there are no ministers," he said.
He also praised the efforts of the Mare Nostrum program,
which was set up to prevent deaths at sea following two migrant
ship disasters in October 2013 in which 400 people died in sight
of Lampedusa.
"Surely the operation Mare Nostrum has given excellent
results," said Pinto.
In contrast, some opposition politicians complain that Mare
Nostrum only encourages migrants to risk their lives and cross
the Mediterranean, often in rickety, overcrowded boats.
There are also concerns that it encourages human smuggling
as well.
Northern League Secretary Matteo Salvini said last week
that Italy must suspend these operations because they are too
expensive - about 300,000 euros daily, he said - and represent
an "invasion" of Italian shores.
Salvini, whose party has taken strong stances against
immigration, called last month on allies across Europe to join
the League in fighting "mass immigration" in the lead-up to
May's European Parliament elections.
In response to the rising levels of dangerous migration,
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has
said that Italy must have more financial help.
The UNHCR has said that the Mediterranean is one of the
busiest seas in the world, and urged European Union members to
work together on solutions to the migrant situation, which is
expected to worsen.
Migrant arrivals to Italy dropped off to the tiniest
trickle under a push-back to Libya policy, similar to
Australia's efforts to stem boat people, which was introduced by
a previous Silvio Berlusconi-led government and criticised by
progressives and human rights groups.
The controversial policy was scrapped with the advent of
centre-left-led governments although some analysts have said
similar programmes should be restarted to stop the people
traffickers who are growing fat on the plight of desperate
migrants who save for years in slave labour and sex work to pay
their passage to what they hope will be a better future.
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