Around 1,000 migrants have landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa since Saturday after crossing the Mediterranean Sea from Africa in various boats, the Italian news agency ANSA said on Sunday, as quoted by Reuters and Agerpres.

Many migrants rescued in the Mediterranean arrive in LampedusaPhoto: Ximena Borrazas/SOPA Images/Shutterstock Editorial/Profimedia

About 270 migrants in six boats were brought ashore on the island of Lampedusa on Sunday morning by the Italian coast guard, after another 718 migrants were rescued from 27 boats on Saturday and transported to the island, located about 130 kilometers off the coast of Tunisia.

All migrants are from sub-Saharan Africa, most from Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal and Mali. They told Italian authorities that they had set off across the Mediterranean from the Tunisian coastal cities of Sfax, Gabes and Mahdia.

Tunisian President Kais Syed announced earlier this summer a crackdown on sub-Saharan African migrants arriving in his country, measures that appear to have increased their departure from Tunisia to Europe. He drew protests from the EU and UN after saying that “hordes” of illegal migrants were a source of “violence and crime” and that their presence in Tunisia was part of a “criminal act” aimed at changing the demographic makeup of his country. country.

The migrant reception center set up on the Italian island of Lampedusa is designed for about 400 people, but is constantly overcrowded, with about 2,000 migrants currently staying there. The Italian authorities regularly transfer migrants from this island to the Italian mainland, from where many of them go to other countries in Western Europe.

More than 96,300 migrants have landed in Italy since the start of this year, compared with 45,700 for all of last year, according to government data in Rome.

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