The number of asylum applications to the EU increased by 28 percent in the first six months of this year, compared to the same period last year, according to the EU’s refugee agency EUAA.
The center of the new refugee crisis has now become the small Italian island of Lampedusa, where the situation is described as “critical” and of “highest priority”, by the UN agency UNHCR.
7,000 refugees in two days
Just last Thursday and Friday, more than 7,000 migrants arrived in Lampedusa and many are ill-advised after crossing the Mediterranean in unsafe boats.
On one of the boats that came to the island on Saturday, the coast guard found a newborn baby who had died. Earlier this week, a five-month-old baby was found drowned after a boat en route to the island capsized, reports Reuters.
Protests among residents
At the same time, the situation has aroused anger among some residents of Lampedusa who during the weekend protested against the refugee flows.
– Lampedusa says stop. We don’t want tent camps. Our message to Europe and the Italian government is that we are tired, one of the protesters told Reuters.
Von der Leyen promises a ten-point program
The dissatisfaction at Lampedusa has also been repeated by the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. During today’s visit to Lampedusa together with European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen, Meloni emphasized that illegal migration is not only Italy’s responsibility, but the whole of Europe’s.
During the press conference, Von der Leyen promised a ten-point program with support from the EU to meet the challenges.
The points dealt with, among other things, that the EU must add additional resources to redistribute migrants to other parts of Europe, and to transport migrants who have been denied asylum back to their home countries. More resources must also be given to monitoring the seas, and to the EU’s refugee agency so that they can handle asylum applications more quickly.