News and Publications from the Med

The 65 landings on Lampedusa and the structural inadequacy of the hotspot system

A strong tramontana has been blowing on Lampedusa for a couple of days. Ferries to and from the island, crowded of tourists, have been at a standstill ever since: the regular ferry fails to leave Sicily's southern shores.
Cigarettes are missing, supermarket shelves are almost empty. "If the ship doesn't come...!" - is the expression sketched as a...

While the situation in Libya did not improve, the conditions for refugees and migrants in Tunisia continuously worsened during the last few months. Against this background, more than 75.000 people made it to Italian shores until the middle of July 2023. On the 29th of June, a record number of 46 boats reached Lampedusa in a single day, mainly...

On Monday 17th July we had the pleasure of hosting Professor Shahram Khosravi at Maldusa Palermo, and to engage in a rich and inspiring conversation about smuggling, starting from the last book he co-edited together with Mahmoud Keshavarz 'Seeing Like a Smuggler - Borders from Below' (2022). Here a short insight on some of the key points we raised...

Over the past few days, more than 2000 people have disembarked at the Favaloro pier in Lampedusa, mainly coming from the coast of Sfax, Tunisia. Below are some fragments of conversations with people who have just disembarked in Lampedusa and who refer directly to what is happening in Tunisia.

During the last days again several thousand people on the move reached Lampedusa, mainly after escaping with boats from the tunisian city of Sfax, where they were targeted by r.acist violence. Partly alarmed and accompanied by civil fleet actors (by phone, by air and by sea) the Italian coastguard ships accompanied most people to the harbour.

A group of 20 migrants and asylum seekers from Western and Central Africa were forcibly displaced to the Tunisian-Libyan border (near Ben Guerdane) on the morning of July 2nd by the Tunisian military and National Guard officers .

Lampedusa - 29th of June 2023: on this day 46 boats from Tunisia and Libya arrived on the island. Only during the last days of June more than 4000 people risked the dangerous routes and reached Italy to ask for protection and looking for future perspectives in Europe.

Last week thousands of people passed through Lampedusa, forced to transit the island hotspot. On Wednesday 28th of June, on 24 different boats, more than 1200 people arrived; on Thursday 29th of June, with 46 boats, more than 2000 people entered the hotspot.