Sicily Becoming a Migrant ‘Catastrophe’

Thousands of migrants a week land in Sicily and threaten to turn the island into a new Greece as authorities refuse to let migrants leave.

In the past 36 hours over 1,300 migrants were rescued from drowning in the Mediterranean as they made the voyage from North Africa to Europe. The migrants were all sent to the Italian island of Sicily where they join tens of thousands of other migrants who have crossed successfully or have been rescued by European coastguards.

Sicily has become the last hope for migrants trying to get into the European Union (EU), but many who land on the island may be stranded there, Der Spiegel reports, threatening to turn Sicily into another Greece.

According to the International Organization for Migration over 48,761 migrants have attempted to sail across the sea from North Africa to Europe in the first five months of 2016. Of those, 2,435 migrants drowned at sea before they could make it to land during that period, but EU border agency Frontex warns that the figure has already risen to 3,500 this month.

Frontex expects that the number of migrants per week will rise to 10,000 over the summer and autumn months.

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