Italy Calls For Urgent EU Meeting On Migrant Influx

Italy Calls for Urgent EU Meeting on Migrant Influx

Italian Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese asked the European Commission on Wednesday to call an emergency meeting to tackle the rise in migrant landings during the summer months

ROME (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 04th August, 2021) Italian Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese asked the European Commission on Wednesday to call an emergency meeting to tackle the rise in migrant landings during the summer months.

Lamorgese requested an extraordinary meeting of the Home Affairs Council, stressing that the problem "cannot be addressed solely by Italy and other countries whose borders coincide with the EU's external borders," the interior ministry said in a statement.

At least 2,000 migrants came ashore in Italy in the past few days, with the small island of Lampedusa bearing the brunt of arrivals. Italian media report that 424 people, most of them from Bangladesh, were rescued at sea on Tuesday alone.

Lamorgese told the EU's home affairs commissioner, Ylva Johansson, in a phone call that political and economic crises in North Africa were the driving force behind the migration surge along the central Mediterranean route.