Calls for naval blockade as migrants mass for crossing
Up to 70,000 migrants are waiting in Libya to make the crossing to Europe, Italy’s intelligence service has claimed, prompting calls in Rome for a naval blockade to stop them.
Concern about new arrivals is growing after 2150 migrants took advantage of calm seas to sail to the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa on Monday and Tuesday, including 800 packed into two large fishing boats.
‘‘Our migrant centre has space for 200, so they were sleeping outside the centre’s gates last night,’’ the island’s mayor, Salvatore Martello, said.
The increased activity could signal the start of a busy summer. Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that Rome’s intelligence service had said that between 50,000 and 70,000 migrants on the Libyan coast were ready to sail.
Matteo Salvini, leader of the anti-migrant League party, which backs the Italian government led by Mario Draghi, warned that ‘‘with millions of Italians struggling, we cannot focus on thousands of clandestine migrants’’.
Giorgia Meloni, the opposition leader who is threatening to steal Salvini’s mantle as Italy’s most popular hard-Right politician, went a step further by calling for a naval blockade.
Italy convinced European Union states in 2019 to commit to the redistribution of migrants, but few have kept their promises.
A government source yesterday denied an Italian press report that Draghi wanted the EU to pay Libya to stop migrants leaving, similar to a deal that it struck with Turkey.
This year, 13,000 migrants have already landed in Italy, triple the 4184 who had arrived by this time last year.
Some of the migrants this week have arrived from Tunisia, with local fishermen suspecting that their dinghies were launched from ‘‘mother ships’’ out to sea, but most sailed from Libya.
Libyan traffickers have sent migrants to sea on dinghies that can be launched surreptitiously from beaches but sink easily, helping to push the death toll on the route this year to 500.
Among the vessels arriving this week have been steel-hulled fishing boats with hundreds of migrants on board. ‘‘Fishing boats like this are far more obvious than dinghies, meaning that checks on trafficking in Libya have loosened,’’ said Flavio Di Giacomo, a spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration.
Meanwhile, the EU’s lead Brexit negotiator has sought to bolster his credentials as a conservative contender for the French presidency by calling for a five-year ban on immigration to Europe.
Michel Barnier said a suspension was essential to fight crime and terrorism and ease tensions in France over the sense of a breakdown in law and order associated with immigration.
He said yesterday Europe’s external frontiers and the Schengen passport-free zone were a ‘‘sieve’’, and: ‘‘I think we have to take the time for three or five years to suspend immigration.’’ Refugees and students would still be allowed.
There was a direct link between immigration and terrorist networks, Barnier said.
Barnier is using media appearances for his book on his experiences as the EU’s Brexit broker to toughen his profile with French voters alarmed by violent crime and radical Islam.