Lampedusa: Ursula von der Leyen and Giorgia Meloni visit island after migrant boat fears
Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, made a visit to a migrant reception center located on the Italian island of Lampedusa.
This visit came in response to a call from Italy’s Prime Minister, who requested assistance from the European Union in dealing with the increasing arrivals of small boats.
Over the past three days, more than 8,000 migrants have reached the shores of Lampedusa, placing Italy under what Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni referred to as “unsustainable pressure.”
During a press conference held with Ms. Meloni, President von der Leyen acknowledged that this issue was a European-wide challenge requiring a collective European response.
She commended the people of Lampedusa for their support towards migrants, who, she noted, had arrived on the island mainly due to its geographical location.
President von der Leyen pledged to enhance support for relocating migrants from Lampedusa while also intensifying efforts to combat human traffickers who facilitate perilous and illegal journeys.
Prime Minister Meloni emphasized that Italy couldn’t resolve this issue on its own. She stated that it was currently impacting the border and frontline countries but would soon involve all European Union member states.
She noted that “the future of Europe depends on its ability to tackle epoch-making challenges of our time, and the challenge of illegal immigration is for sure one of them.”
Tragically, on Saturday, the body of a newborn baby was discovered on a migrant boat. The mother is believed to have given birth during the journey from North Africa, and an investigation is underway to determine the circumstances of the infant’s death, as reported by the Ansa news agency.
The child’s body was placed in a white coffin and taken to a cemetery in Lampedusa’s Imbriacola district, according to Italian media.
Earlier this week, a five-month-old baby boy drowned during a rescue operation off the island, after a boat carrying migrants across the sea from North Africa capsized.
Ms Meloni is pushing for a European Union naval blockade to prevent boats from crossing the Mediterranean to reach Italian shores.
The Italian Red Cross said on Saturday that it was dealing with about 2,500 people at a reception center designed for 400 arrivals.
Volunteers and staff have been providing thousands of meals all week and helping transfer new arrivals to Sicily and elsewhere.
Nearly 126,000 migrants have arrived in Italy so far this year, which is about double the number for the same period in 2022.
Ms Meloni said on Saturday that she was calling on Ms von der Leyen “to personally realize the gravity of the situation we face” and to “immediately accelerate” the implementation of an agreement with Tunisia.
The North African country has become the main departure point for African migrants attempting to reach Europe.
The EU deal, which was signed in July, is backed up by €110m ($118m; £90m) of EU cash to stop smuggling, strengthen borders and return migrants.
The surge in arrivals led to protests on Saturday by some Lampedusa residents against plans to build a new tent camp to host the migrants.
“I have two children at home. In the past years, I did not care about this issue. But now I have an instinct of protection for my children because I don’t know what will happen to Lampedusa in the future,” one of the protesters told the Reuters news agency.
“Lampedusa says stop! We don’t want tent camps. This message is for Europe and for the Italian government. Lampedusa residents are tired,” another protester said.
Jasmine Lozzelli, an activist working on Lampedusa, told the BBC the migrants should be sent to mainland Italy.
“It’s not a problem of numbers, it’s a problem of how you manage the reception system. If you start to do rescues in a proper way with big ships, you take them not to an island of 5,000 inhabitants, you take them to the mainland,” she said.
“Putting them in Lampedusa creates the emergency.”
