Italy Gears Up for Hundreds of Thousands of New Migrants as Other European Routes Close
by THOMAS D. WILLIAMS, PH.D.
BreitBart.com
31 Mar 2016
On Wednesday, an Italian Coast Guard vessel rescued 774 migrants in the Strait of Sicily between Italy and North Africa, one of a seemingly endless series of new waves of migrants moving north as the weather becomes more temperate.
So far this year, the Italian interior ministry has documented 16,075 migrants crossing to its shores, compared to just over 10,000 during the same period in 2015. The Italian coastguard reported that it had rescued 1,482 migrants off the Libyan coast last weekend, and another 1,500 migrants and refugees were received in Italy on Tuesday as rescue ships carried out 11 operations in the Mediterranean.
The deal between Turkey and the European Union (EU) to send migrants back to Turkey came into effect on March 20, effectively closing the so-called “Balkan route” north from Greece into Europe. Since then, traffickers have been scrambling to devise new routes to bring prospective migrants into the continent, primarily through Italy.
As the EU’s migrant relocation program has flopped and borders have been closed along migrant routes, Italy may be now forced to hold on to the majority of people landing on its shores.
European officials have predicted that Libya will become the new route of choice for both African and Middle Eastern migrants, and expect some 500,000 to 800,000 migrants to arrive in Europe from Libya this year.
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