Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi
on Tuesday pledged his commitment to addressing the difficulties
faced by local authorities in managing the number of migrants
and refugees arriving by sea on Lampedusa.
"I promise you that starting from the day after tomorrow, when
we meet in Rome, we will already try to have answers,"
Piantedosi told Lampedusa Mayor Filippo Mannino after a brief
visit with Valerio Valenti, head of the Interior
Ministry's Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration and
newly appointed commissioner delegate for the state of emergency
for migrants, to the tiny Sicilian island that is bearing the
brunt of the recent uptick in sea arrivals from north Africa.
"We have to give him a hand. We have to find a way, an
extraordinary one of course, to give him a hand," Piantedosi
then said to Agrigento Prefect Maria Rita Cocciufa.
"We are asking (Mannino) to perform the role of reception, give
or take a thousand (arrivals) since (Lampedusa) is the first
gateway to Italy and to Europe," concluded Piantedosi.
During the visit Piantedosi and Valenti met with local
authorities and visited the hotspot, which early Tuesday was
hosting nearly 2,700 people against a formal capacity of just
under 400 due to the arrival of over 1,500 migrants and refugees
since midnight on Sunday.
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