Italy coordinates the vast majority of sea rescues between northern African and its southern coast, including islands such as Lampedusa. “If in Italy migrants are arriving, it’s because someone made war with Libya, and the premier was Berlusconi,” Renzi said, referring to NATO’s 2011 air strike campaign against the late Moammar Gadhafi regime. On Sunday, Berlusconi claimed Italy had been left with a “social bomb ready to explode” by center-left Democratic Party governments, once led by Renzi. More than 26,300 migrants reached Spain last year, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Flows will intensify “along the Western Mediterranean route,” warned Estrella Galan, secretary general of the asylum-assistance group Commission for the Protection of Refugees (CEAR) last month.

Source: Egypt Independent February 06, 2018 18:00 UTC