A 4-year-old Tunisian girl has landed alone, without her family, on the Italian island of Lampedusa (south), whose reception center is overcrowded, triple its capacity, due to the fact that in recent hours the arrivals of migrants have increased.
The little girl was separated from her parents and her 7-year-old sister on the beach, in the moments before embarking on Tuesday for Italy, when there were moments of panic and the boat left without everyone on board being on board, according to Save The Children in Lampedusa, an NGO that has taken care of it.
The NGO team on the island immediately guaranteed assistance and supporting the girl “by welcoming, listening and responding to her needs and quickly reporting the case to the competent authorities”according to his spokesman, Giovanni Di Benedetto.
“We believe it is essential that she be taken in immediately to ensure their protection and safety and that the necessary measures be put in place immediately to facilitate his reunion with his family,” he added.
The little girl, accompanied by a social worker, was transferred this morning to Porto Empedocle, where the juvenile office of the police headquarters will take care of transferring her to a special center, according to local media.
The boat in which the little girl was travelling, along with 70 other migrantswas rescued by the Coast Guard a few miles from the coast, where in the last few hours another 200 people have arrived in four boats that were sailing in very precarious conditions.
During the night, it was members of the Finance Guard who rescued the migrants, mostly men, but also some women and many unaccompanied minorsfrom Ivory Coast, Guinea, Cameroon, Gambia, Mali, Sierra Leone and Sudan.
All of them have been transferred to the reception center of Lampedusa, which is, with about a thousand peopleto triple its capacity, which is for 350, after another nine landings were recorded this Tuesday.
Italy registers a significant rebound in migrant arrivals through the Mediterranean: more than 75,000 people have landed in Italy so far this year, compared to 50,000 who did so last year at this time and 26,000 in 2020, according to the latest data from the Ministry of the Interior.
Source: Lasexta
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