Favourable seas in the Strait of Sicily have triggered yet another surge of arrivals on the island of Lampedusa. Between midnight and 23:00 on Saturday, the Italian Coast Guard and Guardia di Finanza recorded 18 landings carrying a total of 649 people, with the final eight boats—290 migrants—reaching the island between 22:00 and midnight. Many of the wooden craft departed from Sfax and Al Khoms, while at least one originated in Libya’s Zouara SAR zone. The influx pushes the Imbriacola reception centre to 1,119 occupants—almost triple its designed capacity of 400—even after the Interior Ministry air-lifted more than 500 people to mainland facilities earlier in the week. Agrigento’s prefecture has chartered the ferry ‘Galaxy’ to transfer another 230 migrants to Porto Empedocle on Sunday night, but the Red Cross warns the hotspot will remain overcrowded unless arrivals slow. Of the latest groups, authorities identified nationals from Tunisia, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Guinea, Gambia and Cameroon. Four survivors reported that their vessel sank days earlier, highlighting ongoing safety risks. In a related move, Italy formally handed over two refurbished ‘Currubia-class’ patrol boats to Libya’s coast-guard under the EU-funded SIBMMIL programme, part of Rome’s strategy to curb departures at source. For corporate security teams the operational impact is modest—commercial ferries and flights to Lampedusa continue—but the political reverberations are significant. Prime Minister Meloni’s coalition faces mounting EU pressure to coordinate asylum processing and relocation. Businesses running seasonal operations in Sicily and the Pelagie islands should monitor for potential protests or port blockades, which have occurred during previous spikes. Longer-term, sustained arrivals could accelerate the government’s plan to expand the hotspot network on the mainland and to tighten rules on humanitarian permits. Employers who rely on the Flussi quota system for non-EU hires should watch for reallocations of interior-ministry resources that could lengthen permit-processing times in the autumn.
Source: La Sicilia
