The new Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini pledged on Sunday to press EU officials for asylum law reform that allows stricter controls on illegal immigration.
During a visit to one of Europe’s most grim migrant reception centres in the southern Sicilian port of Pozzallo, Mr Salvini said tragic shipwrecks off the coasts of Tunisia and Turkey that left dozens dead over the weekend could have been prevented.
“Countries need to start doing their job and no more smugglers should be docking in Italian ports,” he said in a swipe at the NGOs organising rescues at sea, which he has regularly accused of complicity with people traffickers. He added during a stop in Catania that the new government would “not take a hard line on immigration but one of common sense.” Salvini’s fellow deputy prime minister, leader of the anti-establishment Five Star movement Luigi Di Maio, has also called rescue NGOs “taxis on the sea” although his rhetoric on immigration is more measured than that of the League.
Earlier, the Turkish coastguard reported that nine people, including six children have died after a speed boat carrying 15 refugees sank in an incident which happened off the coast of Turkey’s southern province of Antalya on Sunday. Five were rescued by the local maritime security authority and fishermen.
Over 7,000 (7,087) migrants and refugees on the three Mediterranean routes have been registered as arrivals just in the month of April.
