This was reported by the Ansa news agency on Tuesday. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s office confirmed the reports on request. With the state of emergency, it should therefore be easier to set up new reception centers for refugees.
31,000 migrants arrived in Italy in 2023
The arrival of thousands of migrants has been discussed in Italy for some time. The Ministry of the Interior in Rome counted more than 31,000 people who reached Italy on boats this year – in the same period last year there were around 7,900.
A number of people try again and again to reach the Italian islands of Lampedusa and Sicily as well as the Italian mainland or Malta with often unseaworthy boats from Tunisia and Libya via the Mediterranean Sea. The highly dangerous crossings sometimes lead to devastating boat accidents, such as at the end of February off the coast of Calabria with at least 90 dead.