The anger of many of the mayor to the Italian government is large. Of an unbearable heat, and Close in too small and crowded refugee camps, they report – and asking for their municipalities to a stop.
More than 13,000 migrants have come in this year across the Mediterranean to Italy, corresponding to around 9000 people, more than in the same period of the previous year. Especially in July, according to data from the UN refugee relief Agency issued many people in relatively calm seas on the dangerous journey.
the mood on The ground is tilting
Felix White of the refugee rescue organisation, Sea Watch has just returned from several weeks of aerial reconnaissance mission on Lampedusa to Germany. He reported that the mood on the island is threatening to overturn: “In Lampedusa, the situation is extremely tense. In the past few months, almost 5500 people have reached the island independently. The are two, three boats of the day. And Lampedusa is an island that lives almost exclusively from tourism.”
The German volunteers have registered, still no Attacks, but recently two of the smaller ship were to be stored in cemeteries, on which the wooden ships of the migrants, fired – and also in everyday life, White can feel a change in mood in the population, which used to be the migrants are receptive to.
the dispute about responsibility for the crisis
The Corona-crisis, so the impression of the lifeboat service, has increased the pressure. The tourism on the island was literally broke in – less than half of the visitors than in normal years, is currently on the island, estimates that Felix Knows. If then, as was recently done, wooden boats with migrants on the tourist beaches of the landing, making the situation even more difficult.
In this tense Situation, the support offers from Rome to meet some of them. The government wants to send a quarantine ship in the port of the Sicilian municipality of Porto Empedocle. Asylum-seekers and illegal Immigrants could go in quarantine, the interior Ministry, the. But the mayor of the small port town of rejects. They fear risks to the important tourism.
there has been recently many problems with the Corona-prevention in the refugee accommodation. Hundreds of migrants have left on their own to the camp secretly, and so the quarantine requirements violated. To is not a larger Corona outbreak it come out yet.
the head of The right-wing populist Northern League, Matteo Salvini, tries, meanwhile, to make political capital out of the Situation. During a visit to Lampedusa a week ago, the former Minister of the interior made the increasingly, newly arrived migrants responsible for the bad situation of tourism and fishing on the island. Via his Twitter Account, Salvini, was celebrated in Lampedusa from numerous fans, calling again and again to stop the “Invasion” and the vulnerability of the migrants in question. Currently people from the economically of the Corona pandemic in hard-hit Tunisia on Lampedusa.
Brussels is supposed to help
The Italian government has responded to the call for help the local authorities also mobilized the army. Around 300 soldiers they sent to Sicily to guard detention centres and quarantine stations. In addition, Rome has asked the European Union to support – which means, above all, that the EU should take a Partner quotas for themselves.
On Friday evening, the Italian interior Minister, Luciana Lamorgese agreed with your French colleague Christophe Castaner a new political Initiative. The two Ministers want to breathe the so-called Malta-agreement on the distribution of migrants from the southern border of the EU, in other countries new life. In the agreement, a group of EU had agreed States-including Germany – 2019 in a well – ordered distribution of migrants. The implementation works but not.
in Spain, more new arrivals
land only Italy registered more in need of protection. Also in Spain, the authorities recorded an increase of runaways over the Mediterranean sea. With around 2000 people significantly more migrants arrived in July, on the Spanish coast than in previous months. In Murcia and AlmerÃa are nd last weekend, 700 people in the boats Angela. Most of the people come from Algeria, not Morocco.
has not Yet tightened, unlike in Italy, the situation compared with the previous year, with the exception of the Canary Islands. Fully under the control of the government does not have the Situation, however. Observers complain about a confusion of Competency through mandatory Quarantine. The Spanish government wants to bring the refugees into the camps because they feared they might carry the Virus. However, the necessary quarantine, the regional would have to provide accommodations for governments. Currently, this is done in tents, which, given the heat in the country is also problematic.
the Relatively calm situation in Greece. The refugee Agency has registered in July, only 244 migrants at the border, as the UN Organisation announced on DW request. In the last year in the same period 5008 people. The much bigger Problem in Greece, is still crowded camp on the Islands.
Italy wants to sort of refugee policy reform
While the States and at the European levels in the face of new challenges, wants to set the Italian government signs and the work of the NGOs in the refugee rescue easier. As Italian media reported on Friday, agreed the representative of the left Democrats (PD) and the Five-star movement, the change from the former Minister of the interior, Salvini by set rules.
under The compromise, should fall under the million-Euro penalties, with which ships of relief organizations assigned should be. Furthermore, the government wants to introduce, again, an extended humanitarian protection for migrants and refugees and the admission process to expand.
Felix White of the Sea-Watch, however, is skeptical. So far I have changed, in practice, still nothing. “Currently, it is so that the rescue control centres at all not to work with us. We get calls in which the officers of the us say that they work with NGOs, or even talk to us. We have seen in the past few days also, as coast guard boats to the wood of the refugees boats just drive over, and the refugees take when they enter the waters of Lampedusa.”
And by the Italian authorities established a Maritime rescue vessel “Sea Watch 3” is still on the chain in front of the Sicilian Porto Empedocle – for over three weeks.
author: Andreas Noll
*The article “refugees: a call for help from the South” published by Deutsche Welle. Contact with the executives here.
Deutsche Welle
