A number of mayors across Italy are protesting over the influx of migrants from North Africa as another 7,000 refugees arrived at the weekend.
Three town mayors launched protests, arguing that the country — which has taken 86,123 migrants this year, representing a rise of 10 per cent on the same period last year — is being overwhelmed.
Vincenzo Lionetto Civa, the mayor of Castell’Umberto, a town of 3,200 in Sicily, launched a protest after receiving a call on Friday night warning him that 50 migrants landed by a Spanish charity boat would be housed in an old hotel outside his town.
“The local prefect called me at 9.58pm to tell me they would come, but they were already there,” he said. “The problem isn’t the migrants, even if it’s clear there is an invasion under way,” he added.
Enrolling 500 locals via Facebook, the mayor barricaded the hotel with cars, stopping electricians who were trying to enter to get the lights working, and leaving the migrants in darkness.
Advertisement
The Sicilians were backed by Matteo Salvini, head of the anti-migrant Northern League, who said: “There is a demographic boom in Africa and if we don’t act we will be overrun.”
In Lombardy, Giovanni Corbo, the centre left mayor of Besnate, has staged a hunger strike to keep out 17 migrants, while Antonio Cozzolino, the Five Star mayor of Civitavecchia, a port used by cruise ships, has fought plans for a new “hotspot” migrant registration centre, claiming it would scare tourists away.
Another 7,000 migrants arrived in Italy over the past few days including more than 600 who disembarked in southern Italy from a Royal Navy ship.
HMS Echo, a survey vessel taking part in an EU anti-trafficking operation, docked in Bari on the east coast with 644 migrants on board, including a pregnant woman, a man with a gunshot wound and two suspected Egyptian people smugglers.
The increase in migrant numbers has prompted concerns over the pressure being put on local services, such as trying to find accommodation for them at short notice in disused hotels and sports centres around the country, which has led to opposition in villages.
Advertisement
The practice of foreign flagged naval and charity ships, such as the Echo, dropping migrants in Italy after they are rescued sailing from Libya is facing increasing opposition from Italians.
However, officials in Bari appealed for tinned food, shoes and baby clothes for the migrants, who hailed mainly from Ghana, Nigeria and Sudan, before they were taken by bus to reception centres.
On Friday, the UN said that Italy’s 200,000 available beds for migrants were almost all taken, as the country’s deputy foreign minister called for arrivals to be given papers allowing them to travel to other EU states.
Italy has been praised for taking in migrants saved at sea, but has not provided the level of training for employment and in language skills that is offered to new arrivals in Germany or Sweden, leading to migrants hanging around in small village piazzas, banned by law from working while they wait months to hear whether their asylum request is accepted.
Many of those turned down are simply given expulsion papers rather than being physically repatriated, and melt into the underground economy.
Advertisement
Half of the prostitutes on Italy’s streets are believed to be Nigerian migrants.