Far from "under control"  Lampedusa in the last few months

From June to now, we have seen a significant increase in arrivals compared to previous months.

In just the first half of August almost 2,500 people arrived on the shores of Lampedusa, mainly departing from the Libyan coast. In June, just over 2,500 people arrived, while in July, the number rose to over 3,500, with a peak of 14 boats landing in less than 24 hours, with more than 600 people arriving and being brought to the Contrada Imbriacola Hotspot, once again reaching and exceeding the maximum capacity of the containment facility. Also on the last weekend in August, more than a thousand people arrived.

Both day and night, people have reached the Favaloro pier in the port of Lampedusa, on board patrol boats of the Italian Coast Guard, Guardia di Finanza, or Frontex, or on their own boats, often identified by the authorities, also thanks to the reports from Alarm Phone or civil society aircraft.

Despite the challenges that people on the move are forced to face, and the violence they are systematically exposed to because of the border regime, they continue to find alternative routes to reach Europe, demonstrating enormous courage, determination and resilience. Their perseverance still shows the urgent need for political change that can respect their dignity and their right to freedom of movement.

Contrary to a mainstream narrative focused on the ability of the far-right government to "block departures" and therefore arrivals, and the rhetoric of "everything under control," thanks to Giorgia Meloni's agreements with North African countries, the voices of those who manage to cross the sea tell a very different story. 

The situation is far from "under control." The externalization of borders has made it increasingly difficult to reach the sea and cross it. More and more often, people trying to cross the sea are arrested on the beach or violently intercepted at sea—thanks to the supply of naval assets to Libya and Tunisia by Italy—beaten, forcibly transferred to the Libyan and Algerian borders, often abandoned to die in the desert, at other times exposed to those chain refoulement that international law prohibits.

Although the increase in arrivals last year was largely determined by the racist policies of the Tunisian governments and authorities, comparing the current situation to that of 2023 is misleading. The decrease in arrivals does not indicate a change in the reasons for leaving but rather an increase in surveillance mechanisms.

People who, having lost their homes and jobs, were forced to take to the sea in extremely dangerous conditions in 2023, are now facing further obstacles in their escape routes.

Yet, the repression in Tunisia, both on land and along the coast, continues to hit hard people on the move, particularly those of sub-Saharan origin, who are socially segregated, economically exploited and exposed to police violence. Moreover, they remain trapped in a limbo where it is often difficult to escape torture and violence, with increasingly systematic controls and pullback at sea by the Garde Nationale and therefore the impossibility of returning to their country of origin. They are often abandoned in the desert on the border between Libya and Algeria, raped, with no access to healthcare facilities and with a total absence of international institutional intervention.

The structural violence determined by the geopolitical situations of the countries from which people depart and the externalization of borders, appears reflected in Lampedusa: in the decrease in arrivals, in shipwrecks, in recovered bodies and in the signs of torture and scars on the bodies of those who arrive.

Indeed, Lampedusa continues to see people arrive dead at sea, deaths caused by drowning due to a shipwreck or due to intoxication from inhaling hydrocarbons, a cause of death that is increasing exponentially for people who are near the engine in the lower part of the boat during the journey.

Those who manage to arrive, instead, are "welcomed" at the Favaloro Pier, whose structural conditions remain inhumane and inadequate. With the very high temperatures of August, people are lined up under the scorching sun, often barefoot or with no shoes, waiting on the hot concrete. This passage continues to be full of holes and obstacles that hinder the passage of rescue vehicles: a recent example is that of a person who left Libya, arrived in mid-August, whose limbs were amputated. The wheelchair and stretcher for his transport could not pass, because of the tubes used to clean the boats moored by the Guardia di Finanza and Frontex.

The disembarkation time often does not exceed 15 minutes: from medical screening to Frontex's unlawful questions aimed at criminalizing people and increasingly obsessively controlling borders, to reaching the Red Cross bus. In the institutional rush to remove these people from the sight of tourists, they are often not even allowed to go to the toilets at the entrance of the pier. Toilets that continue to lack running water and are in dangerous conditions, with broken doors, impossible to close properly, and falling pieces of wall.

All this is yet another demonstration of a clear institutional intent not to create a dignified and adequate space for those arriving on the island without a European passport.

To this is added the "lightning transfers".

Despite all possible means of surveillance and containment being used—not least the Italy-Albania pact, with an investment of 700 million euros over the next 5 years by the far-right Italian Government, which will have people rescued by Italian authorities land in a port town in northern Albania, where asylum requests will be examined—there is fear of the "September 2023 phenomenon," when almost 15,000 people arrived in Lampedusa in the span of a week.

To date, this fear materializes in the almost immediate transfer of people arriving tired and exhausted after days at sea in unsafe and inadequately equipped boats. From the Hotspot, managed by the Red Cross, people are put on buses to reach the Commercial Pier, where the line ferry docks to reach the port of Porto Empedocle in over 9 hours of travel. It is increasingly common for people to stay for just a couple of hours at the Lampedusa Hotspot, where they are only identified and fingerprinted, without being able to rest, take a shower, or eat a hot meal.

This also means that institutional Organisations or Agencies, increasingly present at the Hotspot with the mandate to identify vulnerabilities, even those less visible and more subtle, and the personal situations of those who have recently disembarked, ultimately fail to do adequate work, with efforts that vanish into thin air, but with consequences that will fall solely on people on the move.

Although the need to speed up transfers had been claimed by many organizations, when people were forced to be detained in Lampedusa for months—even before the implementation of the emergency plan in April 2023 and the advent of the Red Cross as manager of the Hotspot—what we are witnessing today, the speed implemented, does not go in the direction of greater protection of the rights of people on the move but rather towards their violation.

The time for providing appropriate legal information is reduced, thus facilitating the channeling of those landing towards detention aimed at expulsion.

Just in recent days, the Government has resumed attempts to implement new border procedures, within the new detention facility adjacent to the Porto Empedocle Hotspot: 70 places in containers, currently hosting 6 Tunisian citizens, one of whom has had his detention validated by the Court of Palermo. An unconstitutional experiment, yet in progress, before which the dialogue with people on the move to inform them of their rights becomes even more essential.

Once again this summer we have witnessed predictable and avoidable massacres caused by a violent border regime that prevents people's self-determination in choosing where to live. And yet, in the face of a context like that of Lampedusa, increasingly militarized and aggressive in all its nuances—from the massive presence of police and army forces to barbed wires, from armored trucks to confinement places where information silence and the invisibility of what is happening prevail—it seems important to continue to support those who, despite everything, continue to challenge and cross the increasingly sophisticated border devices present in the central Mediterranean, in an attempt to exercise their freedom of movement.