ROME (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th March, 2023) Record number of migrants, more than 6,500 people made the journey across the Mediterranean Sea to the shores of Italy over the last five days, the country's Interior Ministry said on Tuesday.
The same number of refugees from Asia and Africa came to Italy in the first three months of 2022, according to official data. Since the beginning of the year, the migration influx has quadrupled with almost 27,000 migrants already arrived in the country.
The Italian island of Lampedusa is now experiencing the most serious aggravation of the migration problem, as more than 2,000 refugees rescued in the Mediterranean Sea were delivered on it last Saturday. The situation at the local temporary accommodation center for migrants is critical, since it is designed to receive only 400 people. A similar situation is developing in the seaside town of Roccella Ionica, where 1,500 migrants have arrived in the past four days.
Local experts link the sharp increase in migration flows with the internal political crisis in Tunisia, as well as the protracted instability in Libya.
Migrants who daily arrive in the Apennine Peninsula across the Mediterranean Sea has once again become the focus of internal political discussions in Italy after a ship with refugees sank during a storm in the Ionian Sea on the night of February 26. According to survivors, there were about 180 people from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan on board. Officials said that 89 people, including 34 minors died in the shipwreck.
Italy seeks a solidarity approach from the European Union to solving the migration problem, offering to organize a naval mission in the Mediterranean and actively contribute to the stabilization of the situation in North Africa. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, speaking last week in the parliament, said that "Italy was left alone" to rescue migrants in the Mediterranean.
