Blocking ports to humanitarian organizations believing that this was the most useful and functional strategy to reverse course? A failure.
Despite the hard punch against the NGOs, that our seas cannot operate following the directives of the Government melonsarrivals continue following one another at a sustained pace of almost 1000 new presences per day.
The most recent data reported by Ansa speak of 15 thousand new migrants despite the last three weeks of absence of ships of humanitarian organizations in the waters of the Mediterranean.
The moves and the anti-landing policies in fact, they are not giving the much hoped for results and there does not even seem to be a concrete proposal by the executive to present to the members of the Union to assert its position and political line for the redistribution of migrants within the Community territory. Today that goal seems like a claim without a future that creates embarrassment on the eve of the summit with the representatives of the member countries.
The situation is therefore paradoxical and in these hours what worries Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the competent ministers is precisely the lack of an operational solution to bring to Europe in the negotiation post clashes with Norway and Germany.
No allies in the Mediterranean: how the numbers of landings are rising
To better understand the overall situation, we must necessarily analyze the numbers and understand which routes and which failed alliances are causing such a massive arrival as to be unmanageable for our country.
Indeed, the numbers recorded since the issue of the anti-NGO decree confirm the critical situation that we see on the Italian coasts today. The first weight number is that of the total landings that took place in this period. 15,374 people arrived by sea in recent weeks.
In particular, these arrivals, in two-thirds of the cases, are attributable to large fishing vessels that departed from the coasts of Eastern Libya. Registering arrivals from this area is actually an even more critical factor because it confirms the failure of the newly renovated chords (and funding) close with the government of Tripoli. In short, this trend demonstrates how Italy cannot count on reliable interlocutors on the other side of the Mediterranean.
Going back in time and looking at the absolute values, however, it can be identified that the hottest area from which the boats that we see arriving in the Sicilian and Calabrian ports depart is that of Cyrenaica. It is in fact from the beaches on the border between Libya and Egypt that the statistical surveys place the massive starting point of the traffickers. For this reason, the most widespread ethnic group among the migrants is the Egyptian one, with 19,113 presences throughout the peninsula.
Strategic failure: reorganization before the EU summit
There is talk of “mismanagement” of the phenomenon of landings in the face of one particular figure: in October of this year arrivals are double compared to those recorded in 2021. Not to mention the fact that not a single day was recorded in November without new landings.
We are thus faced with an emergency condition that requires thoughtful choices. The “tactics” month in the field up to now since Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi however they have not stemmed the phenomenon. On the contrary. Today we are faced with numbers that contradict this line of thought. Vessels of non-governmental organizations cannot be blamed for the overcrowding of the Italian coasts since in 2022 they brought only 10,276 of the 93,629 people who landed to Italy.
With similar evidence, the objective of obtaining satisfactory results through the application of the anti-NGO decree falls but, more importantly, in the hands of the executive there is no longer any concrete argument for bargain with Europe firmly on the front of redistributive reception policies.
In conclusion, we can note that this sad picture has not been recorded only by observers and the press. The problematic nature of the current situation was also fully understood by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. In fact, it was she herself who, returning from the COP27 meeting in Bali, urgently summoned the ministers concerned, as well as the head of Dis Elisabetta Belloni and the undersecretary with responsibility for Services Alfredo Mantovano, in search of a new line of action that favors them in the forthcoming multilateral confrontation.
