The Italian island of Lampedusa has had it’s population more than doubled on Tuesday after 6,800 people arrived in numerous, unseaworthy boats which had crossed the Mediterranean Sea from Tunisia. The recent immigrant surge has overwhelmed Italy’s Coast Guard and tested Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s promise to combat illegal immigration. Germany and France have said that they will reject illegal immigrants who come to Europe via Italy, putting more pressure on Meloni’s government to find a solution. With limited space available on the island for migrants, Italian authorities had to quickly ferry the migrants off the island to Sicily or the Italian mainland. Over 120,000 migrants have arrived in Italy just this year and more than 11,000 of them have been unaccompanied minors. Baobab Experience, a Rome-based non-profit which helps migrants, says that many of the migrants they have helped this year are from Sudan, South Sudan and Eritrea.
