Before dawn on Saturday, Italian authorities brought 1,650 mostly African and Middle Eastern migrants ashore, dumping them in already overcrowded shelters. A day earlier, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced tougher penalties for traffickers in an effort to reduce arrival numbers, which have risen dramatically under her administration.
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According to government figures, a coast guard ship took 584 people from two stranded migrant vessels, while two smaller coast guard motor boats took 379. The coast guard and border police boats escorted another migrant vessel carrying 487 people to shore.
Due to overcrowding in Calabrian shelters, the groups of 584 and 487 were brought to shore in Calabria, while the 379 were taken to the Sicilian port of Augusta.
“The rescues were complicated because the boats were overloaded with migrants and the sea conditions were unfavorable,” the coast guard said in a statement.
According to local officials, another 200 people were picked up off the coast of Sicily, while the air force was flying migrants out of an overcrowded shelter on the island of Lampedusa, which is closer to North Africa than the Italian coast.
So far this year, over 17,000 migrants have arrived in Italy, compared to 6,000 in the same period last year.
Meloni took office last year on the promise of increasing deportations and prohibiting non-governmental organizations from transporting migrants to Italian ports. While she has been successful in reducing the number of these vessels operating through fines and impoundments, the number of migrants making the journey has increased, prompting her to announce harsher prison sentences for human smugglers and their accomplices on Thursday.
Meloni blamed smugglers for a shipwreck off the coast of Calabria last Saturday that killed at least 76 migrants. She claimed on Thursday that her new measures, which include prosecuting smugglers operating in international waters, will help combat “third-millennium slavery.”
