“The situation in Lampedusa is there for all to see, but it is Europe that must help Italy to best manage it,” Urso told reporters following a visit to the hotspot in Contrada Imbriacola and Favarolo quay, where the majority of migrants and refugees arriving on the tiny Sicilian island are disembarked.
“The situation here is unsustainable, and solutions must be found to reduce (the number of arrivals) on the one hand and to further strengthen the existing provisions (to manage them) on the other,” he added.
The quay at Favarolo is littered with fuel canisters removed from abandoned migrant boats, clothes, shoes and thermal blankets, while in the water small boats are amassed pending disposal.
There were almost 4000 migrants and refugees including 181 unaccompanied minors in the Lampedusa hotspot mid Sunday afternoon, following the transfer of 568 people off the island by passenger ferry to Porto Empedocle earlier in the day.
In the evening, two groups of 70 people each were transferred by military aircraft to Pratica di Mare near Rome and Pisa in Tuscany.
There are also plans to transfer a group of about 250 people (not 100 as originally stated) to Porto Empedocle by ferry.
Early on Sunday there were nearly 4300 people in the temporary reception centre in Contrada Imbriacola following record arrivals on Friday and Saturday.
Meanwhile, on Sunday a finance police patrol boat intervened to rescue a group of 44 people from the island of Lampione west of Lampedusa.
The refugees and migrants, from Syria and Egypt and including three women and six minors, said they had departed from Abu Kammash in Libya at 8pm last Friday and that they had paid US$3000 each for the journey.
The group was disembarked on Lampedusa, taking to 252 the total number of people to have arrived so far on the island in five separate landings on Sunday.
ANSA
