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REFUGEE CRISIS

IMMIGRATION

‘Italy has a big heart, but we can’t take everyone in’

Interior Minister Angelino Alfano on Wednesday rejected a call to take in all migrants and refugees, saying that even though Italy has a big heart, “we can’t take them all”

'Italy has a big heart, but we can't take everyone in'
Some 46,473 people have landed on Italy’s shores since the start of the year. Photo: Giovanni Isolino/AFP

Alfano was speaking at an event in Ostia, near Rome, in response to criticism from Monsignor Nunzio Galantino, the general secretary of the Italian Bishops Conference, of Italy’s proposal to start fingerprinting migrants crossing the Mediterranean as soon as they are picked up by rescue boats.

The so-called ‘floating hotspots’ “are a bad copy of detention centres”, Galantino told La Repubblica, adding that while on a ship, the right for migrants to seek asylum would not be ensured.

Italy and Greece have borne the brunt of Europe’s refugee crisis, with 46,473 people landing on Italy’s shores since the start of the year.

Some 13,000 were rescued by the Italian navy, coast guard and EU vessels in several shipwrecks last week, while at least 1,000 are feared dead.

A joint report published by Europol and Interpol last month said there were around 800,000 migrants in Libya waiting to attempt the journey across the Mediterranean.

Meanwhile, an EU plan devised last September to move 120,000 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece to elsewhere in the EU has fallen by the wayside.

“I understand Galantino’s words, as a bishop, but I'm the interior minister and have a duty to ensure that laws are respect,” Alfano was quoted by Ansa as saying.

“We’re the champions of the world when it comes to being humanitarian and welcoming. We have a big heart, but we can’t welcome everyone.”

Galantino also said the migrant deaths were “a slap in the face to European democracy” and slammed the EU for failing to create “a humanitarian corridor, provided for by international law, towards countries willing to host migrants, in order to encourage safe passage and avoid violence, exploitation and deaths”.

IMMIGRATION

France ‘will not welcome migrants’ from Lampedusa: interior minister

France "will not welcome migrants" from the island, Gérald Darmanin has insisted

France 'will not welcome migrants' from Lampedusa: interior minister

France will not welcome any migrants coming from Italy’s Lampedusa, interior minister Gérald Darmanin has said after the Mediterranean island saw record numbers of arrivals.

Some 8,500 people arrived on Lampedusa on 199 boats between Monday and Wednesday last week, according to the UN’s International Organisation for
Migration, prompting European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to travel there Sunday to announce an emergency action plan.

According to Darmanin, Paris told Italy it was “ready to help them return people to countries with which we have good diplomatic relations”, giving the
example of Ivory Coast and Senegal.

But France “will not welcome migrants” from the island, he said, speaking on French television on Tuesday evening.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has called on Italy’s EU partners to share more of the responsibility.

The recent arrivals on Lampedusa equal more than the whole population of the tiny Italian island.

The mass movement has stoked the immigration debate in France, where political parties in the country’s hung parliament are wrangling over a draft law governing new arrivals.

France is expected to face a call from Pope Francis for greater tolerance towards migrants later this week during a high-profile visit to Mediterranean city Marseille, where the pontiff will meet President Emmanuel Macron and celebrate mass before tens of thousands in a stadium.

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