After mass arrival in Lampedusa: How acute is this crisis?

While Lampedusa calls for help, migration experts agree: it is a political rather than a humanitarian crisis. Another hotspot is more crucial for Germany.

The operator of an accommodation on Lampedusa says she is simply disappointed about the recent visits by EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and head of government Georgia Meloni: “Now we’re just waiting for Giuseppe Conte to visit.” The head of the populist Five Star Movement is next to come to Lampedusa. New rumors are constantly circulating among the islanders about what will happen to the thousands of recently arrived migrants. Their big concern is becoming a second Lesbos – by creating a large tent camp in which more than 5,000 people live.

After all the years in which refugees arrived on Lampedusa by boat, the residents of the Italian Mediterranean island fluctuate between helpfulness, empathy, fears and doubts. There are always events that particularly move people: most recently, when a five-month-old baby fell into the water and drowned. The coast guard wanted to bring migrants from a boat to shore. It was night and the child could not be saved.

Also the resident who was with me tagesschau.de speaks and does not want to be named in this polarized debate, immediately donated children’s clothes and toys, and cleaned up at the harbor. On that day last week, when thousands of people arrived, the restaurants closed because they were giving their food to hungry people, she says. But she asks: “How long should we do this? And then the cancellations from tourists, all the remains of the boats in the harbor. That also has economic consequences for us.”

Increase not unexpected

The number of arrivals to Lampedusa has been increasing since spring. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 260 percent more people got on boats in Tunisia from January to August 2023 than in the same period last year. As UNHCR Special Representative for the Mediterranean, Vincent Cochetel is the voice of the UN organization. He thinks the increase can be explained: “It’s a feeling of ‘now or never’ and a kind of panic.”

Anyone who makes it to Tunisia ends up on the streets and has to fear for their own safety. Because the Tunisian authorities are overwhelmed, he says: “We all hear this ‘political imperative’ that something has to happen. But where are the people supposed to go? There are no legal escape routes for people from Sudan, for example, where there is war .”

EU politicians also suspect that Tunisian President Kais Saied may have ordered the Tunisian border guard to let the boats leave. Von der Leyen’s visit to Tunis in July does not seem to have had the intended effect: the joint declaration of intent between Tunisia and the EU remained vague in the end, the 100 million euros in money awarded by the EU were earmarked for border protection – millions more were only supposed to flow , if Tunisia meets certain requirements.

An offer from Saudi Arabia just a few days later to overcome the economic crisis may have been more attractive: the kingdom offered the country a $500 million loan, interest-free and without conditions.

“Bad situation management”

Is Europe and especially Lampedusa currently experiencing a crisis? Cochetel compares the situation with other countries and shakes his head. Four times as many people fled to Chad in the same period – Sudanese fleeing the war: “You have to put the numbers into perspective. The feeling of a crisis arises from the poor management of this situation.”

The islander sees it differently; it is definitely a crisis for them. She blames this primarily on the fact that the reception center is overcrowded: in recent years, Italian authorities have not increased the 450 places in the small camp. However, at times 6,000 people were housed there.

Migration expert Victoria Rietig from the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) has observed that keeping too few places available for new arrivals could be politically desired as a political strategy in some countries: “You can also create a crisis by keeping too few places available “450 places are not a lot. Italy doesn’t want to deal with this crisis alone,” she says. She also doesn’t want to talk about a new EU migration crisis in connection with Lampedusa: “The situation definitely doesn’t go beyond everything that has existed before. The question is whether Italy can’t increase capacity or doesn’t want to.”

It is a permanent problem for the residents that more ships are not used to quickly transport people away from the island. Migration expert Rietig believes there is no need to create a crisis. “It is not an acute crisis for the EU, but rather the well-known ongoing crisis. But it is a crisis for those affected: today the municipality in Lampedusa and in a few weeks the municipalities in Germany.”

Knaus warns about the situation in the Aegean

When politics identifies migration crises, migration expert Gerald Knaus is in demand because he looks for solutions – and sometimes comes up with very controversial ones, such as the EU-Turkey deal in 2016. Knaus is in discussions with many politicians these days; in Athens, Ankara and Berlin. He considers the situation in Lampedusa to be a political crisis that needs to be solved so that trust in politics does not continue to decline and right-wing extremist parties do not gain popularity: “It is a crisis of the political system.”

However, Knaus is steering the interest of German politicians away from Italy: “For Germany, the situation in the Aegean is much more important. Germany should negotiate with Greece together with Turkey next week before the situation gets out of control.” He is promoting a concept for a new deal with Turkey: the Greeks are prepared to legally accept 20,000 to 30,000 Syrians themselves.

Meeting on the sidelines of the UNGeneral meeting?

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan want to meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. In Greece, too, the number of people making their way to the EU from Turkey is increasing again. Until now, the Greeks had simply abandoned people at sea or rejected them robustly. The new Greek migration minister, Dimitrios Kairidis, is said to be a little more cautious about such pushbacks after more than 500 people drowned off the Greek coast in June.

A total of 2,375 people have drowned in the Mediterranean this year – including the five-month-old baby who fell into the water while being rescued off Lampedusa. According to UNHCR figures, the Mediterranean remains the deadliest migration route in the world.