More than 300 migrants have been rescued over the last few days by the private rescue ships Ocean Viking and Geo Barents, run by SOS Mediterranee and Doctors without Borders MSF respectively.
The police union in Milan has called for assistance for officers at city's police headquarters, where crowds of people gather every day to file asylum requests. Growing tensions between police and foreigners recently led to tear gas being used.
Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani have issued statements after their visits to countries of departure of migrants. Interior Ministry Undersecretary Nicola Molteni meanwhile announced a 'migrant flow decree' to respond to labor market demand.
On a visit to Tunisia the Italian ministers for foreign affairs and the interior met with their counterparts to discuss stability in the Mediterranean region and stopping migration flows. The Italian delegation will travel to Egypt on Saturday, another key departure and transit country.
A prominent Catholic bishop and leader of the Migrantes foundation is among NGO leaders to call on the Italian government to scrape their new decree regarding the rescue of migrants and refugees by humanitarian ships.
The organization ANCI has said that while Italy's municipalities are willing to receive migrants, they need better long-term planning and coordination from the national government when it comes to migrant reception.
According to Germany's biggest tabloid newspaper Bild Zeitung, in 2022 Germany tried to send back over 68,000 migrants to other EU countries under rules governed by the Dublin accords. The majority of those attempts failed.
The crew of the Geo Barents rescue ship completed the disembarkation of the 73 rescued migrants in the Italian port of Ancona on Thursday. The ship is the second NGO ship to dock in the port this week.
Three Italian men were given a suspended sentence of two years in prison for violently beating an immigrant of African origins who hanged himself a few days later.
The new stringent norms adopted by the Italian government toward NGOs conducting sea rescues will not stop migrant arrivals, declared Italy's National Forum of the Third Sector. The root causes of migration need to be solved instead, they said.
From October until December last year the flow of migrants in the Italian city of Trieste alone has increased five times through the "Balkan route", according to the Prefect, Annunziato Verdé. He also adds that 120,000 Ukrainians fleeing from war arrived through the region of Friuli Venezia Giulia in 2022.
On December 31st, in the presence of dozens of police, coast guard officials and medics, the Ocean Viking rescue ship disembarked the last of 113 migrants at the port of Ravenna in northern Italy. Frey Lindsay reports for InfoMigrants.