UN to send team to Italy to investigate racist attacks on migrants

THE UN’S new human rights chief is to send a team to Italy to scrutinise the plight of migrants, amid a reported increase in racist attacks since the formation of a populist government in June.

UN staff will be dispatched “to assess the reported sharp increase in acts of violence and racism against migrants, persons of African descent and Roma (gipsies)”, Michelle Bachelet, a former president of Chile, told the UN human rights council in Geneva.

The populist coalition’s decision to close Italian ports to NGO rescue vessels had had “devastating consequences”, she said. Ms Bachelet noted that in the absence of NGO vessels, which have found it almost impossible to operate under the new restrictions, more migrants were dying at sea.

Matteo Salvini, Italy’s combative interior minister, has been accused of fomenting hatred towards migrants, with incidents recorded of Italians shooting at groups of black Africans with air rifles.

But the minister dismissed the UN’S concerns, saying: “In the last few years Italy has taken in 700,000 migrants and has never received cooperation from other European countries. So we don’t accept lessons from anybody, least of all the UN, which is biased, costly and misinformed.”

He said Italian police had “denied that there is a racism emergency”.

Mr Salvini conceded, meanwhile, that expelling all unauthorised migrants in Italy would take 80 years at the present rate of repatriations. Greece’s biggest migrant camp, Moria, on Lesbos, will face closure next month unless authorities clean up “uncontrollable amounts of waste” within 30 days. The camp has been described as overcrowded and unfit for humans.