Surge in illegal immigration overwhelms Italy's Lampedusa, raising concerns across Europe

The Italian island of Lampedusa has been inundated with a wave of illegal immigrants, with nearly 3,000 new arrivals landing on its shores since last Wednesday. According to official figures, a total of 2,870 illegal migrants docked on the island from 67 small boats, the majority of which originated from nearby Tunisia.

Migrants have taken advantage of favourable sailing conditions to make the 113-kilometer journey to the island, which has long been viewed as a gateway to Europe, according to Siciliy-based Radio Radicale correspondent Sergio Scandura. 

Hundreds have arrived each day since Wednesday, with a further 401 people landing in 9 small boats as of Sunday evening. Some migrants from Benin, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, and Guinea reported paying traffickers around €954 for a place on a boat leaving from Zuwara, Libya.

#Lampedusa
2870☀️

401 in 9 sbarchi (ieri alle 20:00)
446 in 10 (6/4)
797 in 20 (5/4)
670 in 16 (4/4)
556 in 12 (3/4)

Persone tutte partite dalla costa orientale della #Tunisia (in maggioranza subsahariani da Sfax), tranne un paio di imbarcazioni arrivate dalla #Libia.

OSINT RR https://t.co/FnJ1EldnPy pic.twitter.com/eruzFfT0Gm

— Sergio Scandura (@scandura) April 8, 2024

The influx of illegal immigrants has left the island, home to just 6,000 natives, overwhelmed and overcrowded. Local officials have complained about the saturation of services and asylum centres operating at full capacity. In September last year, more than 6,000 migrants landed on the island in a single day, prompting Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini to declare the arrival a "declaration of war on Europe."

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has faced criticism from many on the right for failing to address the surge in illegal immigration, despite it being a key electoral promise following her rise to power in September 2022, Remix News reported. The migrant hotspot has also raised concerns in other areas of Europe, where new arrivals will be distributed under the recently agreed EU Migration Pact.

Parisian residents have expressed fears over the next influx of migrants from Lampedusa, citing existing safety concerns due to the re-emergence of migrant ghettos in the French capital. In Poland, football fans have unfurled anti-migrant banners, while Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has described the immigration surge on the Italian island as reminiscent of an "invading army."

Security concerns surrounding the Lampedusa route have been validated by reports confirming that recent Islamic extremists have used the island as their entry point into the European Union. In October last year, the Italian interior ministry confirmed that Abdesalem Lassoued, the Islamist gunman responsible for killing two Swedish football fans in central Brussels, had arrived in Europe illegally via Lampedusa back in 2011.