Nearly 700 migrants were rescued this Saturday (23) off the southern coast of Italy, according to a statement issued by the country’s coast guard on Sunday, in a demonstration of the growth of the migratory flow in the Mediterranean during favorable sea conditions. Authorities also found five bodies of migrants killed aboard the vessel in unknown circumstances.
Most of the 674 migrants were rescued on a fishing boat nearly 200 kilometers off the coast of Calabria, the “boot” of Italian territory. They were transferred to port cities in Sicily and Calabria, and the five corpses were taken to the hospital morgue in the municipality of Messina.
More than 34,000 asylum seekers and migrants have arrived in Italy since the beginning of this year, up from 25,500 in the same period in 2021, according to Italy’s Interior Ministry.
Mediterranean countries that are part of the main routes to Europe expect to receive more than 150,000 migrants this year, as food shortages caused by the Ukrainian War threaten a new wave of migration from Africa and the Middle East. On Sunday morning, the Norwegian-flagged vessel Ocean Viking spotted an overcrowded rubber dinghy in international waters off the coast of Libya and rescued 87 people, including 57 unaccompanied minors, the vessel said on Twitter.
In another episode, on Saturday, the search and rescue ship of German NGO Sea-Watch rescued more than 400 migrants, including several children and two pregnant women, who were traveling in four crowded boats. According to Sea-Watch, the calm sea and lack of wind helped the arrival of migrants to the Italian coast.
In Lampedusa, at dawn on Sunday, 522 people from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia arrived on the island, most aboard about 15 boats from Tunisia and Libya. This is a challenge for the local reception centre, which has the capacity to house 250 people and currently receives 1,200 people, according to the Italian news agency Ansa.
The Central Mediterranean migratory route is the most dangerous in the world. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates the number of dead and missing since the beginning of this year at 990.
This increase in summer arrivals in the Northern Hemisphere coincides with a period of great political uncertainty in Italy following the resignation of Prime Minister Mario Draghi after losing the support of his two-party government of national unity. The President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, dissolved Parliament and set the elections for September 25, in which the far-right Brothers of Italy party, led by Giorgia Meloni, appears as the favorite in the polls.
This Sunday, the leader of the right-wing Liga formation, Matteo Salvini, lamented the arrival of “411 illegal immigrants in a few hours to Lampedusa”. “On September 25th, Italians will finally be able to choose change: for the return of security, courage and border control,” he wrote on Twitter.
