Displaying items by tag: Italy

The Italian government recently closed its ports to rescue ships, arguing Italy had taken its fair share of refugees. This week Brussels announced plans to pay EU countries £5,350 to take a refugee, and the Italian foreign minister agreed to allow EU ships carrying rescued migrants to dock at Italian ports (but only for a five-week period). Unfortunately, the interior minister said, ‘If they want to give money to someone else they can do so - Italy doesn’t need charity.’ Italy demands a revision of EU’s anti-trafficking mission in the Mediterranean, as currently rescued migrants automatically disembark at Italian ports.

Gale-force winds tore through seaside communities close to Athens, fanning the flames which have left a trail of death and destruction. Coastguards saved 700+ people who fled to the sea during the night of 23/24 July. The region is popular with tourists, particularly pensioners and children at holiday camps. By 26 July the death toll from Greece’s forest fires had reached 83, expected to rise as rescuers search the disaster zone where dozens are still missing. ‘We all have pain’, sighed 67-year-old Maria who had lost her six-month-old grandson, two cousins, their children and all of her worldly possessions. Her daughter Margarita is fighting for her life. ‘My grandson hadn’t even been baptised. He died in Margarita’s arms, and now she is in intensive care.’ ‘God doesn’t give us the words to describe such things’, said one woman who survived the disaster because she was visiting doctors in Athens with her husband.

In a dusty Roma camp, life goes on despite threats of an ethnically-targeted census and deportation by Italy's new hardline interior minister Matteo Salvini, who recently refused to take in a rescue ship carrying 630 migrants. He intends to throw out Roma people without legal status. His call was blasted as ‘unconstitutional’ by rights groups and criticised by members of his own government. Some are drawing parallels with measures targeting Jews under fascist wartime leader Benito Mussolini. ‘If Salvini comes here, we will welcome him with kindness. He needs to see how we live’, says Habibi Mehmedi, a teenager in a camp outside Rome's main ring-road - away from the eyes of the office workers and tourists. ‘Some do bad things, but most of us are Italian and have not committed any crimes.’ Despite the Roma community making up at most 0.3% of Italy's population, they are subject to extreme hostility from the general public. The Joshua Project states that the Italian Roma people’s primary religion is Christianity.

Following difficult negotiations after the 4th March election Italy has agreed to have a coalition government. Ministers are drawn from both the anti-establishment Five Star (M5S) and the right-wing League. Their newly chosen minister, Giovanni Tria, is in favour of Italy's continued membership of the single currency. But the populists' conflict with the EU is not entirely over. The M5S and the League have promised both new welfare spending and also tax cuts - which may run into conflict with the EU's spending rules.Army general Vincenzo Santo believes 80% of the flow of Mediterranean migrants is controlled from Italy’s coastlines by its Mafia. With a new government pray that the migration issues will be dealt with. Many are anxious about immigration and afraid of migrants. Italians no longer trust in the EU protection of borders, the principle of Schengen zone and the solidarity principle in general. See

Clashes between anti-fascist and far-right activists have increased ahead of a general election on 4 March. Recently, police in Milan used batons as left-wing demonstrators tried to break through a police cordon. The Anti-immigration League party leader, Matteo Salvini, told supporters that defence of the country was a ‘sacred duty’. There have been protests in Milan, Rome and Palermo as campaigning enters its final week. The right-wing Forza Italia party, backed by 81-year-old Silvio Berlusconi, could be in the lead. The anti-establishment Five Star Movement opposes Berlusconi, as does the far-right League and the Brothers of Italy parties. Former prime minister Matteo Renzi joined a National Partisans organisation with the slogan ‘Fascism Never Again’.

Faiez Serraj, head of the UN-backed unity government in Tripoli, has said that Europe is at risk from terrorists posing as migrants unless western capitals help Libya stem the numbers crossing the Mediterranean. He claimed that would-be terrorists were among the tens of thousands of people passing unvetted into Italy across its open southern borders. If this is the case, all the EU will be affected. His comments follow last week’s terrorist attacks in Spain, which police have linked to radical groups in North Africa. Nearly 98,000 migrants have crossed from Libya to Italy this year, almost as many as last year, and there are at least another 700,000 in the country. There is clear evidence of a modern-day slave trade on these routes, and Italy’s social and democratic fabric is under threat amid growing public intolerance to migrants.

Last Monday In Rome, thousands of Italians marched against abortion and euthanasia at their annual March for Life. Participants included Cardinal Raymond Burke, Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Kazakhstan, and Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, former Apostolic Nuncio to the USA. The march is ‘taking on a life of its own,’ said a commentator. There were various groups of priests, Franciscan friars, youth groups, families, a group of bagpipers from Tradition, Family, Property, the Italian branch of Rachel's Vineyard, and many other Christian organisations. The march ended with a rally at which abortion survivor Gianna Jessen urged pro-lifers to be ‘unashamed of Jesus’.

Italy's coastguard reports that at least 34 migrants (some of them children) have drowned off the Libyan coast. The overcrowded boat was carrying about 500 migrants when it listed, sending about 200 people into the water, and triggering a frantic search for survivors. Good weather has prompted an increase in the number of migrants leaving Libya for Italy. The waters are busy with Italian and Libyan coastguard boats, humanitarian vessels, and even scavenger boats hoping to recover abandoned equipment. An NGO reported a Libyan coastguard vessel firing gunshots as it conducted a rescue. The boat was already carrying migrants, presumably picked up from other vessels, who panicked and threw themselves overboard, only to be shot at. ‘We cannot say whether and how many dead there were,’ the 25-year-old captain, named Jonas, was quoted as saying. ‘We had to be careful not to get a bullet ourselves. We are speechless against this crude violence.’

Rescuers are still hopeful that they will find survivors after an avalanche on Wednesday left at least two people dead and dozens more buried under rubble and snow.  Teams worked through the night in the search for at least 25 people believed to be missing. The avalanche struck the remote Rigopiano hotel, in the central Abruzzo region, after multiple earthquakes in the region. Two people who were outside the hotel at the time of the avalanche survived. The earthquakes, four of which were stronger than magnitude 5, terrified residents of rural areas who were already struggling with harsh conditions after heavy snowfall buried phone lines and took out power cables. Prosecutors in Pescara, the nearest big city, opened a manslaughter investigation into the disaster, amid growing criticism of the Italian authorities’ slow response.