Migrant arrivals to Italy drop by a third

Photo credit: Reuters. Migrants on a wooden boat are rescued by German NGO Jugend Rettet off the Libyan coast.

TMP – 15/01/2018

Migrant arrivals to Italy by sea fell by a third in 2017 compared to a year earlier, the Italian Interior Ministry said on Sunday, as Libyan authorities increased efforts to slow departures during the second half of the year.

“We were able to govern the flow because we were the first to believe that an agreement with Libya was a turning point,” Interior Minister Marco Minniti said in an interview with Corriere della Sera, commenting on the decline.

In February, Italy signed an agreement with the United Nations-backed government in Tripoli, promising aid, equipment and training in exchange for its help in fighting people smuggling.

Since the agreement was signed, armed groups supported by the Tripoli government have prevented smugglers from sending out boats from Libyan shores. The Libyan coastguard now also regularly intercepts migrant boats at sea and brings them back to Libya.

Humanitarian organizations operating rescue ships in the Mediterranean have criticized the policy, saying that it traps migrants in a country where they face appalling treatment, including rape, slavery, torture and forced labour.

More than 5,000 migrants died attempting the crossing from Libya to Italy in 2016 alone, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates, making it the deadliest border for migrants in the world.