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The island of Lampedusa in Italy has seen the arrival of 7,000 exiles since the start of the week. The authorities and the Red Cross are overwhelmed.
The exiles are trying to get out of the Lampedusa camp (Italy) at all costs. They are trying to escape a crowded place where they have been crowded. The reception center is designed for 400 people, and there are more than 7,000 of them. They arrived in around a hundred overloaded boats after several days of crossing. Landed on the platforms, a mist cools them. The tension rises quickly. A little further away, there are other people.
Floods in Libya
This sudden arrival of exiles owes nothing to chance. They left Tunisia. But the vast majority come from Libya, 1,000 kilometers from Lampedusa. We can think that the catastrophic floods currently in Libya have created a form of chaos that made more departures possible. “I think the smugglers jumped at the opportunity, thinking that the coast guard Libyans had better things to do at the moment”analyzes François Gemienne.