EU chief vows new migrant help for Italy after Lampedusa surge

LAMPEDUSA: The European Union presented on Sunday an emergency plan for Italy to help it handle migrant arrivals after a record number of people landed on its island of Lampedusa over the past week.

The surge in asylum seekers on the Italian island of Lampedusa has rekindled a fierce debate in Europe on how to share responsibility for the tens of thousands reaching the Continent each year.

“Irregular migration is a European challenge and it needs a European answer,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said during a visit to Lampedusa, offering a 10-point plan to help Rome deal with the crisis.

Since Monday, around 8,500 people — more than the island’s entire local population — have arrived in around 200 boats, according to the UN migration agency.

Lampedusa, Italy’s southernmost island, has long been a landing point for migrant boats from North Africa. But this week officials said its migration centre, built to house fewer than 400 people, was overwhelmed.

“We are doing everything possible,” Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said at a press conference with von der Leyen on Lampedusa.

It is “the future that Europe wants for itself that is at stake here, because the future of Europe depends on Europe’s capacity to face major challenges,” Meloni said.

The Italian Red Cross, which runs the overcrowded Lampedusa migration centre, said Sunday that 1,500 migrants remained there despite having a capacity for just 400.

Transfers of migrants to Sicily and the mainland have not kept up with the flow of new arrivals, although further transfers were expected to be made Sunday, the Red Cross said.