I’m including the above graphic with this post for nostalgia’s sake: ten years ago I used the Cultural Enrichment Thermometer to keep track of the migration across the Mediterranean in 2011, the year of the Arab Spring. The final total was about 61,000, which seemed a huge number at the time. However, the much higher levels in the years since then would have blown out the top of the thermometer. The maximum annual total, if I remember rightly, was about half a million.
The following Italian report describes the current flood of culture-enrichers arriving at the island of Lampedusa. Many thanks to HeHa for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:
Video transcript:
00:01 | The calls to Alarm Phone multiply: fourteen landings in Lampedusa in less than 15 hours. | |
00:07 | They ask for help, crying “we don’t want to die here,” | |
00:10 | say the emergency number operators, who immediately informed the law enforcement. | |
00:14 | The Coast Guard and Financial Police patrol boats | |
00:17 | have been ceaselessly ferrying people in the Mediterranean. | |
00:21 | They have been rescuing people mostly in the Maltese SAR zone [search and rescue maritime zone]. | |
00:29 | Men, women, children mainly from Africa, but also from Bangladesh. | |
00:33 | They use wooden boats, some of them just 20 meters long, overloaded with people, as usual. | |
00:39 | A trawler in distress was carrying 398 people. | |
00:42 | It was detected three miles away from Lampedusa. | |
00:46 | More boats have been convoyed to the pier. | |
00:49 | And there’s more: other boats are waiting for help, in the open sea. | |
00:56 | More than12,000 people have landed on our shores since the beginning of the year, | |
01:00 | three times as many as those who came in 2020 during the same period. | |
01:04 | Malta won’t answer the emergency calls. Italy keeps rescuing people. | |
01:10 | Even on Lampedusa, the frontier territory is taking the risk | |
01:14 | of being overcrowded, not being able to handle the arrivals. | |
01:17 | Its mayor addressed the government with these words: | |
01:20 | It was a predictable risk. As soon as the nice weather arrives, | |
01:24 | it is normal we face landings with overwhelming numbers. | |
01:27 | They cannot say we are again in a state of emergency, all of a sudden. | |
01:34 | Prime Minister Draghi is supposed to urgently schedule the migration issue on his agenda. | |
01:39 | Apparently the appeal didn’t go unheard. | |
01:42 | Minister of the Interior [Luciana] Lamorgese, whom [Matteo] Salvini | |
01:45 | asked to take measures, talked to the Prime Minister. | |
01:48 | They have scheduled a system of cooperation between the Ministry of Defense and that of | |
01:52 | Foreign Affairs to face the issue of the difficult relations between Europe and Libya and Tunisia. | |
01:57 | In the coming days they will be meeting. | |
02:00 | Manuela Iatì, Sky TG24. |
War is coming. Appalling behaviour.
Jesus let’s hope so.
So, you are using Jesus Christ name as a curse word.
Oops! My sincere apologies Theresa. That was not and never would be my intention.
understood.