Italy: Sicily is experiencing an influx of refugee boats

In Italy, the number of refugee boats is increasing rapidly. After a mass escape of a good 500 migrants to Sicily from the two-week Corona quarantine, right-wing supports of Lega boss Mateo Salvini are creating a mood against the barracked.

Hundreds of migrants arrive in small boats on the coasts of southern Italy almost every day. In Malta, security forces took in 95 people who were in distress at sea. Officials in Valletta confirmed the arrival of a group. According to local authorities, the camps on the Italian island of Sicily are overcrowded. After protests, people were moved from Lampedusa to other places, but the influx continued. So far, almost 5,280 migrants have arrived in Italy in July - more than in the previous two years. This is remarkable because 2018 was a year with particularly high numbers. At that time, around 18,000 people arrived from January to July, now there are already more than 12,000 - after only 3,600 in the past year.

Incidents occurred in and around the accommodations, where people sometimes spend two weeks in quarantine. A civil protection shelter at the port of the city of Porto Empedocle in Sicily saw a mass escape of around 520 people, as the Ansa news agency wrote. Mayor Ida Carmina had previously complained of unbearable heat and tightness there.

At the weekend, 184 migrants from a camp in the Sicilian city of Caltanissetta had illegally escaped. Security forces tracked down around 120 of them. They were returned to quarantine. Mayor Roberto Gambino announced that he would write to the Home Office: "I demand that no one comes to Caltanissetta." The camp is unsuitable.

According to reports, more than 100 people arrived in Lampedusa during the night, including many Tunisians. Right-wing Lega politicians around Matteo Salvini and other far-right parties have made frontlines on social media: Rome endangers the health of its citizens by taking in boat migrants who increase the risk of coronavirus, they claimed. Salvini wrote of a disaster. While Italians were checked in their homes and on the beach, refugees did what they wanted. Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese flew to Tunisia for talks. Many boats leave from that country and from Libya.

Source: n-tv.de