Photo: Members of emergency services work at a site where a bus carrying migrants crashed into a lorry in Fiano Romano, Italy September 15, 2023 | Photo : Image supplied by a third party / Polizia di Stato/Handout via REUTERS
By Emma Wallis
A bus transferring migrants who had recently arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa crashed, killing two people and injuring 25 others. The accident came amid reports of chaos and tension on Lampedusa as the authorities try to speed up the transfers of migrants off the island.
A BUS carrying around 50 migrants crashed into a truck on the motorway just outside the Italian capital Rome on Friday (September 15), killing the drivers of both vehicles and injuring 25 of the migrants on board, three of them seriously.
The Italian state broadcaster Rai reported that the three seriously injured men – a 66-year-old, a 25-year-old and an 18-year-old – were taken to Rome’s university hospital Gemelli. The eldest of the men had the most serious injuries, said Rai. The other injured migrants were seen by doctors at other hospitals and clinics around Rome before being taken to be looked after by the prefecture. 35 of the bus passengers received medical checks at the scene of the accident but did not need hospital treatment.
Also read: Italian woman saves four migrants on Lampedusa holiday
The two drivers who died in the crash are reported to come from the town of Favara in the province of Agrigento. The company they worked for supplied buses and coaches for police work in the province.
Headed for northern Italy
According to Rai, the bus had been transporting the migrants from the port of Empedocle towards a reception center in the north-west of Italy in the region of Piedmont. All of the migrants on board had arrived on Lampedusa in the last few days.
Italian police said the bus had collided head-on with a goods lorry. One of the drivers is believed to have died on impact and the other man was thrown from the vehicle by the crash. Both drivers were in their early thirties.
The crash comes as Italian authorities have been working hard to transfer as many migrants out of Lampedusa as possible. On Thursday, there were reportedly around 7,000 migrants in the reception center on Lampedusa. Videos in the Italian press showed numerous scenes of stress, tension and confusion between groups of migrants penned in behind fences and walls, screaming to get out, or board buses, and police and Red Cross personnel who were attempting to manage the situation. As a comparison, Lampedusa and its sister island of Linosa have just 6,500 registered inhabitants.
Pushing, shoving and scuffles
In one video on the Italian TV channel La 7, the presenters say the migrants are desperate to get on the bus after spending the night outdoors.
On Friday, the Italian Red Cross, which runs the reception center or “hotspot” on Lampedusa, told Reuters that numbers were now down to around 3,800, but still far more than the center’s 400 capacity.
‘After the transfers, the situation is calmer’
The German news agency dpa reported that tensions had “abated” on the island after 700 people were transferred by ferry to mainland Sicily on Friday morning and a further 2,500 were expected to be transferred later in the day. Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) also published a video of the situation and transfers on the island.
As a record number of migrants arrive in Italy's Lampedusa, tensions are rising, causing the island to declare a state of emergency. pic.twitter.com/4YRXhu7Aya
— DW News (@dwnews) September 15, 2023
Things were calmer on Friday morning on Lampedusa, reported the Red Cross, after the thousands on the island were reduced by about half | Photo: Cecilia Fabiano / AP / picture alliance
The director of the Italian Red Cross, Rosario Valastro confirmed on social media that the situation was calmer. He said the Red Cross was doing “everything it can and more” to help transfer people safely and calmly, thanking the volunteers and residents of the island for “moments of deep humanity and hospitality,” reported dpa.
Things were calmer on Friday morning on Lampedusa, reported the Red Cross, after the thousands on the island were reduced by about half | Photo: Cecilia Fabiano / AP / picture alliance
By Friday morning, the Italian interior ministry had registered 127,207 migrant arrivals in Italy in small boats since the beginning of the year. The number of arrivals is almost double that in the same period in 2022 and with the exception of May, there have been significantly more arrivals each month than in the equivalent months of the preceding two years. There are now a total of 141,201 registered migrants in Italy overall. Around 100,730 of these are in reception centers, around 5,700 are in “hotspots” and around 34,770 are in various other forms of accommodation run by the state or affiliated organizations.
Italy calls on Europe to do more
The majority of those arriving recorded their nationality as Guinean, with Ivorians and Tunisians following close behind. According to the latest figures, updated on September 15, 43,658 of the arrivals this year come from a variety of other countries.
So far this year, 11,630 unaccompanied minors have arrived in Italy. Last year, the total for the whole year to December 31 was 14,044.
The Italian government has called on the EU to help it manage the situation. President Macron of France promised “European solidarity.” However, earlier in the week, France shut its border with Italy to try to stop more migrants crossing into France. Italy and France have experienced diplomatic tensions due to migration.
On Thursday night, on the right-leaning Rete 4 private TV channel, Italy’s Minister for Infrastructure and leader of the League Party, Matteo Salvini, declared that he could not rule out asking the Italian navy to step in to ease the situation.
With Reuters, dpa
https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/51858/lampedusa-chaos-and-tension-amid-transfers-off-the-island
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