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ROME, March 20: Italy declared a state of emergency over immigration on Wednesday, concerned the arrival of 1,000 Kurdish refugees in Sicily was the first wave in a coming flood of thousands more illegal immigrants.
After a cabinet meeting, the government said immediate action needed to be taken to deal with a potential tide of migrants seeking to emulate the Monday landing on Italy’s coast.
“This is a move to try to tackle a very large and worrying phenomenon,” Regional Affairs Minister Enrico La Loggia told reporters after the meeting. “There are probably other arrivals on the way and we need to be prepared.”
The declaration is largely an administrative move designed to free up funds quickly rather than a signal of alarm. No details were released about the length of the emergency or the amount of funding.
On Monday, some 960 illegal immigrants, most of them Iraqi Kurds, arrived at the Sicilian port of Catania in a rusty and barely seaworthy merchant ship seeking political asylum.
It was the largest single arrival of immigrants in Italy for nearly five years and the latest in a growing tide of people from North Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe seeking refuge in the country — more than 20,000 arrived last year alone.
The issue has exposed deep divisions within the government, with many backing Interior Minister Claudio Scajola’s call to grant the Kurdish arrivals asylum, while outspoken Reform Minister Umberto Bossi said Italy was being soft on immigrants.
“We need action. I have broad shoulders but there is a limit to everything and I’m fed up with these crocodile tears,” Bossi said on Tuesday, adding that it would be a better idea to blow smugglers’ ships out of the water rather than seize them.
PASTA AND CLOTHES: While Bossi’s bitter words were still reverberating, prompting President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi to appeal for “humanity”, the Corriere della Sera newspaper said satellites had picked up at least four more boats on their way to Italy.
A source at the Interior Ministry said dozens of boats in the Mediterranean were being monitored by authorities but would not say how many, or how many people they might be carrying. Officials have suggested 50,000 people are already on their way.
On Wednesday the latest arrivals were bused from Sicily to a makeshift refugee centre on the heel of mainland Italy. There they received blankets and medical attention and were fed plates of pasta.
Sefar, a 42-year-old Iraqi Kurd who arrived with his wife and three children, was pleased with his first change of clothes in over a month, including a crisp Red Cross T-shirt.
“It’s very nice. I’ll carry it with me always to remember how well we’ve been treated by the Italians, not just in Catania but here in Bari,” he said.
185 NABBED: Turkish police rounded up 185 mostly Kurdish migrants early on Wednesday as they prepared to head off illegally to Italy, where authorities are already embroiled in a row over illegal immigration, said a report filed in Ankara.
The Anatolia news agency said the group was detained in Buruncuk, and had paid 2,000-3,000 dollars each for passage to Italy.—Reuters/AFP
