The migrant invasion into Lampedusa continues at an unprecedented rate, and the inhabitants of the island are being overwhelmed. The Italian government is thus far unable to deal with the problem in any meaningful way.

It’s worth noting that voting makes no difference. Anybody who thought that voting for the Lega and Fratelli d’Italia in the last election would solve the immigration problem was sadly mistaken. It doesn’t matter who Italians vote for — the boats just keep coming.

Many thanks to Gary Fouse for translating this article from Il Giornale:

From the shadow of the mother ship to the rapid debarkation: Lampedusa is under siege

by Valentina Raffa
September 12, 2023

Never so many debarkations in a single day. Sources tell Il Giornale that for now it is difficult to quantify the number of arrivals. And now the system is at risk of collapse. “We are exhausted.”

There are always a lot of them, but today it is an invasion. Ten, fifteen, even more. The boats off the coast of Lampedusa overloaded with migrants are impossible to count. The amazement is great even for the islanders, who are accustomed to continuous debarkation.

It is a tsunami of migrants that poured into Lampedusa. Small boats and iron boats, one next to the other, a short distance away, and others behind in the waters in front of the principal pier. And still other boats further off in the distance. “They continue to arrive,” says a source in Lampedusa. “We cannot count them. Many are stopped by the police.” And several groups managed to land on the beach independently.

The very brief respite due to bad weather is over. The hotspot, which yesterday morning counted only 19 migrants, is again at the point of collapse. In 24 hours almost 2,500 people have arrived, counting the migrants landing independently and stopped when they tried to disperse on land, and those rescued by the motorboats of the Guardia di Finanza, but another dozen landings have to be counted.

“The island can no longer support these numbers,” says the mayor of Lampedusa, Filippo Mannino. “The defense forces need to intervene. I am appealing to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the entire Italian government to adopt emergency measures. The territory is not able to withstand this shock wave, the scale of which surpasses even the resident population. It is impossible to guarantee adequate actions of assistance to migrants, notwithstanding the immense logistical force, which events show is insufficient. Citizens, businesses, economic operators, workers, police, and reception associations,” he concludes, “are already in a state of unsustainable physical and psychological suffering.”

Meanwhile, the transfers have begun. Some 600 will leave the island today on scheduled ferries and Diciotti boats of the Coast Guard to reach a new destination. In Italy, obviously, But it is only a palliative. It’s like a boat with an open leak You try to throw out the water, but it keeps coming in. Lampedusa is sinking and, at this rate, so will Italy if it cannot redistribute the migrants in an obligatory manner within the countries of the EU, and without distinguishing between the “placeable” and the “undesirable”, which instead happens for those few migrants who are relocated outside the borders.

Former mayor Toto Martello, now president of the Fisherman’s Consortium, who knows the territory well, and, over the years, has seen the changes caused by the phenomenon that affects everyone, not just the island, is convinced. What is needed is a 360-degree agreement to resolve the problem of illegal immigration, which has reached an exceptional number of almost 118,000 arrivals since the beginning of the year. “Up to now, there has been too much demagoguery and so many slogans,” he says, “but we need to think about the only possible solution, as indicated by the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella: The creation of legal corridors which envisage agreements among all the nations bordering the Mediterranean and those of Africa. Immigration,” continues Martello, “will not be solved with the 114 million promised by the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to empty Lampedusa, because it is not an economic phenomenon.”

Meanwhile, as Europe watches the invasion of Italy from afar, the police, health workers, and all those involved in the machinery of reception have had to roll up their sleeves. Yet again. The patrol boats of the Coast Guard and the Guardia di Finanza have not stopped. With still no solution. “They even go out to get the migrants from the NGO boats,” says a source on the front line of rescue to Il Giornale. “We are exhausted.”

The iron boats, numerous, loaded with migrants, are in a line at the Favarolo pier. And the amount of identification activities, which are routine, notwithstanding the extraordinary scope of the events, is not sufficient, but the police have to carry out investigations to be able to understand how it could happen that so many boats, almost all iron, have been concentrated in the same area of the sea. As if they belonged to the same group, perhaps, it is hypothesized, dropped off along the coast by a mother ship, generally a fishing vessel.

Almost all of the ships left from Sfax, only a few from Monastir and from Sidi Mansour. The migrants are from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Chad, Tunisia, Guinea, and Cameroon and for the crossing have paid between 1,000 and 5,000 Tunisian dinars apiece. The men of the Mobile Squad [police] of Agrigento are also working to ascertain the statements of 40 migrants saved from the Resqship sailboat, Nadir, who disembarked Monday morning on the island, and who reported yet another tragedy at sea. But the investigators are proceeding cautiously.

Not only are there conflicting versions, in that it was initially said that some 40 were lost at sea, then a maximum of 10, but furthermore, neither the maritime authorities, immediately informed by the Nadir, nor the NGO Sea Punkt, nor the Frontex recognizance plane, Osprey 2, have sighted wreckage. Other investigations concern maritime piracy. There are two groups of 40 and 30 migrants respectively who have reported being victims of sea pirates who took the motors of the boats.