Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is visiting Tunisia today to discuss with the new government there how to stem the flow of migrants to the tiny island of Lampedusa, the government in Rome said yesterday.
At the same time, Italy, the destination of some 20,000 migrants, mostly Tunisian, since the start of the year, renewed its appeal to other European Union countries to take in some of the migrants.
Mr Berlusconi had “a telephone conversation today with the Tunisian Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi and the two heads of government agreed that (Mr Berlusconi) would visit Tunisia on April 4,” the government statement said.
Mr Berlusconi yesterday met his interior, defence and regional affairs ministers to discuss immigration and how to divide up the 6,000 migrants being evacuated from Lampedusa among other parts of the country.
Earlier he had complained in a phone call to the leader of a small allied party about the lack of cooperation from Tunisia even though last Friday two ministers had gone there with the promise of financial help for development and halting the migrations.
Meanwhile the evacuation of thousands of African migrants from the Italian island of Lampedusa that has sparked a government dispute began yesterday amid charges that Europe was failing to help Italy deal with a refugee crisis.
After weeks of protests from local inhabitants of Lampedusa and fierce condemnation from aid organisations over the living conditions on the overcrowded island, a first group of 1,450 migrants set sail yesterday for the Manduria reception centre in Puglia on the mainland.
A ‘Free Lampedusa’ plan launched by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to clear the tiny island of refugees was welcomed by cheering locals on Wednesday. But his news that the immigrants would be shipped to the makeshift Manduria camp in Puglia provoked outrage.
Italy’s deputy interior minister Alfredo Mantovano and local mayor Paolo Tommasino, a member of Mr Berlusconi’s centre-right People of Freedom party, resigned in protest.
Though overshadowed by the chaotic situation on Lampedusa in recent weeks, the tent camp in Puglia has sparked protests from locals residents tired of the large numbers of immigrants who have managed to escape the centre.
Mr Mantovano had promised on Monday that the camp would not hold more than 1,500 people and swiftly resigned when he discovered the prime minister was sending over a thousand immigrants to Puglia.
“After having read in the newspapers that Berlusconi had announced the arrival of 1,400 immigrants, it seemed like the only thing to do,” Mr Mantovano told Ansa news agency.
A plan for the regions to take in immigrants evacuated from Lampedusa has been the subject of bitter infighting between the government and local authorities.
Italy renewed its appeal to the European Union yesterday for help dealing not just with Tunisian migrants looking for a better life, but also with refugees from other parts of Africa formerly held in detention camps in Libya.