Premier Matteo Renzi said Tuesday
migrant numbers haven't risen with respect to last year, but
some fearmongering politicians are exploiting the issue while on
the campaign trail.
"Clearly they are playing on immigration fears but the
numbers are vastly different from those claimed (by some
rightwing politicians)," Renzi said.
"There is no increase in the number of migrants compared to
last year - just an increase in alarm stoked for electoral
purposes."
What has not changed, said Renzi, is that men, women, and
children fleeing war and persecution in Africa and the Middle
East go on dying in the attempt to cross to safety.
"People are still dying in the Mediterranean, and that's a
fact," Renzi said.
"I prefer to lose a few campaign points and save lives".
At least 880 people lost their lives in a series of migrant
boat wrecks in the Mediterranean last week, the office of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said
Tuesday based on conversations with survivors in Italy.
A total of 2,510 asylum seekers have died trying to cross
the Mediterranean since the start of 2016, up from 1,855 for the
same period in 2015.
Three shipwrecks have been known since last Sunday, and the
UNHCR has learned that an additional 47 people are missing after
a dinghy carrying 125 people from Libya deflated. Another eight
people died on board another vessel and four people were
reported dead in a fire on yet another boat.
The UNHCR said 203,981 asylum seekers have arrived in
Europe by sea so far this year. Of these, almost three quarters
arrived in Greece via Turkey before the end of March, and 46,714
came to Italy - almost the same number as last year.
Also on Tuesday, the European Commission warned it will
open infringement procedures against member States if the pace
of refugee relocation within the EU does not pick up.
"The pace of relocation must accelerate," said EC
spokesperson Mina Andreeva, who pointed out that only 1% of the
160,000 people who were meant to be transferred from Italy and
Greece have been resettled.
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