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Lampedusa: UNHCR says conditions unacceptable, rapid transfer needed
Overcrowding ‘unsustainable and creates a situation in which assistance provided is severely below minimum standards’
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has asked the Italian government to find "urgent solutions to improve the handling of refugees at the Lampedusa reception centre", asking that migrants be transferred to centres more suitably equipped across the entire country.
The UNHCR said that the Contrada Imbriacola centre was built to provide initial reception to migrants and asylum seekers rescued at sea while awaiting their transfer to other centres while their cases are examined. In the absence of a system for the rapid transferal of migrants off the island, it said, extremely poor conditions regularly arise, especially due to the possibility of further arrivals.
UNHCR's Regional Representative for South Europe, Laurens Jolles, noted that the agency had been asking Italy for years to speed up transfers from Lampedusa. "The overcrowding constantly seen is unsustainable and creates a situation in which, despite the efforts of humanitarian aid workers, the assistance provided is severely below minimum standards," he said.
Works to enlarge the centre - which the UNHCR has been requesting since 2011 and which had recently begun - have been suspended due to the exceeding high number of migrants housed within it. The UNHCR has asked that the reception centre go back to its original capacity of 850 places to prevent a single landing from creating serious overcrowding with poor hygienic conditions and people forced to sleep outside near the centre.
The UNHCR also expressed concern over the situation of 26 Syrians and Eritreans - some of whom are survivors of the October shipwrecks - that have been in the Lampedusa centre for over two months so as to be available for questioning by magistrates.
Jolles noted that "it is incomprehensible that these people, some of whom survivors of a tragedy of enormous proportions, are still stuck on Lampedusa without their being guaranteed the tranquillity needed to overcome trauma and try to recreate a life with dignity."
