Nine landings on Lampedusa: over a thousand migrants arrived, hotspot collapsing

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09 May 2021The wave of landings that has hit Lampedusa in the last hours shows no sign of stopping.

Two other landings have been registered in the last few hours: it is a boat with 109 men, including a child, and a sea cart with 20 men.

With the latest arrivals, the total number of migrants arriving on the largest of the Pelagias rises to 1,186.

A relentless exodus with the hotspot now collapsing. 

The last two landings in the late morning. First, a patrol boat from the Harbor Master's Office brought 97 migrants of various ethnic groups to the Commercial pier, all men, intercepted 2 miles from Lampedusa on a ten-meter wooden boat with an outboard motor. Less than an hour later a Guardia di Finanza patrol boat escorted 38 Tunisian migrants, including 2 women and a child, to the Favaloro pier, who were on a wooden boat of about eight meters.

The first to land were the 415 migrants who arrived in Lampedusa with two different boats. The first 20-meter wooden boat, carrying 325 people on board, was intercepted 8 miles from Lampedusa. The second cart, intercepted 5 miles from the coast, was escorted by a patrol boat of the financial police to the Favaloro pier. On board were 90 migrants of various nationalities, 83 men, 6 women and a baby girl. The two groups were taken to the hotspot which was empty.

During the morning there were other landings. The fifth saw the patrol boats of the Port Authority and the Guardia di Finanza landed on the Favaloro pier 398 migrants of various nationalities, including 24 women and 6 children. The damaged iron fishing boat, intercepted about three miles from Lampedusa, was then recovered by the Guardia di Finanza.

In a few hours, almost a thousand migrants arrived on the island of Lampedusa, with four landings and the mayor Totò Martello raised the alarm: "The Libyan route has been opened in a few hours, hundreds of them arrive". "The hot spot is holding up for now - explained the mayor of Lampedusa - but in four landings from 5 in the morning to now about a thousand people have landed, the last of 470.

Identification procedures and swabs are already underway. We are waiting for the Splendid quarantine ship and the vast majority will be transshipped. "And the mayor sounds the alarm:" I am worried, it is no longer the Tunisian route, it is the Libyan route. They are boats that arrive with hundreds of migrants at a time. If this continues, the system does not hold up. "" We cannot speak of landings - he adds - only when the weather is good. The problem must be addressed seriously. There is an objective problem that must be faced with the coastal countries in the Mediterranean and with Europe. What can I do when I am in Lampedusa to mark the line? ".