The migratory tragedy continues to hit the Mediterranean. Yesterday, the Italian Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, reported before the Chamber of Deputies of this country that a two-year-old girl died after the barge in which she was traveling capsized off the coast of the island of Lampedusa. Italian authorities managed to rescue 42 survivors, but the girl died aboard one of the coast guard boats. Another 8 people are missing, and were being searched by patrol boats and helicopters.
According to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 2,200 people have died in 2023 trying to cross the Central Mediterranean, being the worst year since 2017. Everything occurs when Italy is experiencing an increase in migratory pressure due to of the economic and social crisis in Tunisia, where most of the boats that arrive in Lampedusa depart. So far this year, more than 150,000 people have arrived on its shores, compared to the 94,000 who did so in the same period in 2022.
In the same Chamber of Deputies, Tajani yesterday defended the unusual agreement reached between Italy and Albania, an unprecedented solution in the EU that has the objective of building two centers under Italian jurisdiction in this country to transfer some 36,000 migrants a year. rescued by the Italian authorities with the objective, according to Rome, of discouraging this route.
According to the head of diplomacy, this agreement cannot be compared with the pact reached between the United Kingdom and Rwanda to deport migrants to the African country, a measure that the United Kingdom Supreme Court has recently confirmed is illegal. Faced with criticism, Tajani stated that he has nothing to do with it because “there is no outsourcing to a third country of the management of asylum requests” and migrants “will be treated according to European and Italian standards.” Tajani also assured that Italy will pay all the costs of this operation, which will involve an initial amount of 16.5 million euros. The European Commissioner for Migration, Ylva Johansson, has indicated that a priori this agreement does not violate European law because “it is outside European law.”
