The health and economic crisis linked to the new coronavirus " generates an exceptional flow of economic migrants ", the Italian Ministry of the Interior said in a press release on Wednesday. Many of them land on the tourist island of Lampedusa, under the eyes of bathers on vacation. " The autonomous landings on the Italian coasts have more than multiplied in a very short time, " notes the ministry, referring to the small boats which cross the Mediterranean from the coasts of North Africa without being intercepted.
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Nearly half of the roughly 11,000 migrants who landed in Italy last week had left Tunisia, and most of them were Tunisian citizens, according to official figures. The others had embarked, in their majority, from Libya. " The EU must take up this issue immediately " and make a distribution of new arrivals, " especially during this phase of high health risk ", Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said on his Facebook account on Wednesday. .
300 new arrivals in Lampedusa
More than 300 people, mainly Tunisians, arrived in Lampedusa during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday on board 13 boats, bringing to more than 1000 the total of migrants in the reception center whose theoretical capacity is 95 people. They stood in a row in the harbor for a while - one woman holding a toddler, another hugging a kitten - before many of them took their seats on a ferry to the port. Sicily, noted an AFP photographer.
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The Italian coastguard also announced Wednesday that it had rescued a hundred migrants in distress on a dinghy that was deflating off Libya, as no competent authority wanted to intervene. Italian Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese met Tunisian President Kais Saied and his Interior Minister in Carthage (Tunisia) on Monday to express her " deep concern " at the recent influx of migrants from Tunisia. Repatriation flights to Tunisia resumed on July 16, with 80 Tunisian citizens having been returned since the end of confinement, the ministry said on Wednesday, adding that it intended "to increase the number of weekly returns ".