Bader meets his Sudanese friends in front of the church of Lampedusa. They want to call their house to tell them they're OK. The church is the only corner of the island that has a free Wi-Fi network and where most of the escapes are combined. Bader can hardly withstand the media attention that has aroused the problem of the Open Arms rescue boat that has brought him here. “We are approached by microphones without counting anything before. Before I make statements I want to meet you,” he tells the
periodistas.El young Sudanese knows who Matteo Salvini is, who was Interior Minister when he landed Open Arms: “When I was in Libya, I read that the Italian Government was very demanding, but I didn’t think it was going to establish an imaginary barrier at sea.” On 29 August, the same day that this report went to the printing press, the new coalition of Italy formed by the 5 Star Movement and the Democratic Party has been announced. Salvini is not going to be an Interior Minister and it is going to be seen whether the immigration policy of the new government is going to change.

For Bader it has been very difficult to be 800 metres from Lampedusa and realize that the landing was impossible. "Italy does not want to welcome us, OK, we do not want to stay in Italy either. But I found it very cruel to obstruct entry,” he added. Now, Lampedusa is being put on the map. “It’s very far from Europe! Look, it’s closer to Tunisia than it is to Rome,” he said, surprised. Bader will not spend much time on the island. Upon completion of the registration process, the transfer shall be carried out to the country in which it is located.

Meanwhile, restaurants near the main square of Lampedusa are filled with tourists. For Italians, the island is a mass holiday destination. In the summer season it is difficult to find a place to sleep. Vespa cars and motorcycles occupy all roads. The beaches are full of people. In winter everything changes. “We are a piece of land that is easily forgotten,” said Professor Daniela Freggi. Freggi has a turtle surveillance center in front of the commercial port of Lampedusa: “In recent years the life of the island has changed radically. We used to be four cats in winter. Most of the hotel owners moved to Brazil or Argentina with all the money raised during the summer.”

And now? “Lampedusa has become the gateway to Europe and have launched 11 programmes to strengthen borders,” Freggi explained. In fact, Lampedusa is now fully militarized. NATO has a military base, the Italian army controls the entire western area and the European agency Frontex, which monitors borders and coasts, has launched several missions. Every time drones fly, the internet and phone connections drop. “We are suffering from brutal militarization, but not only that. All humanitarian organizations have opened their offices in Lampedusa,” said artist Giacomo Sferlazzo.

Sferlazo calls that "the humanitarianism business." The artist of Lampedusa is part of the cultural association PortoM and has created a small museum with objects of migrants. Sferlazzo does not share the romantic vision of Lampedusa created by the media: “They have fueled the image of the host island, but here is everything: citizens who offer assistance to refugees, who turn their backs on reality and who are purely xenophobic.” It is a microcosm representing the whole of Italy.

Development of migration policies

When did this militarization begin? “The first ships arrived in the 1990s. Italy complied with EU rules and imposed visas on neighbours living on the other side of the Mediterranean. They were the first to arrive boats full of Tunisians,” says Sferlazo. But in the early years of the new millennium, Silvio Berlusconi's second government tightened immigration policy. The controversial Bossi-Fini law added the crime of secrecy (reato di clandestinità). Italy accepted the first deportations and the Navy boats were engaged in patrolling the Mediterranean.

However, the conflicts that originated in the Middle East led to the exodus in 2011. The fugitives began to reach Lampedusa, Calabria, Sicily and Apulia. Many were heading directly to Northern Europe, but many others, implementing the Dublin agreements, were recorded after their landing. Italy was the gateway to the European Union and it was therefore up to the Government of Rome to resolve asylum applications. Italy received a significant amount of money to provide a rapid response to the emergency situation.

But 2013 was a turning point. On 3 October, 366 people drowned near Isola dei Conigli Beach in Lampedusa. A few days later, another shipwreck unleashed the shame of the whole of Europe. The government of Enrico Letta then began an ambitious rescue operation, called Mare Nostrum, in which the shipwrecks were drastically reduced. But that campaign had a monthly expenditure of EUR 9.5 million for Italy. Rome asked for help from Brussels and European operation Triton replaced Mare Nostrum. The new campaign, led by Frontex, had far fewer resources and was not about rescuing the fugitives, but about controlling borders. Triton, for his part, gave the witness to Operation Sophia, which in recent times has been limited to air surveillance.

Thus, NGO rescue boats have entered the area left by the EU. “Europe has turned its back on the drama that is taking place in the Mediterranean. The vacuum left by the Member States or public institutions has been filled by private hands. The sea rescue has been privatized,” says Sferlazzo. According to data provided by the Italian Ministry of the Interior, there are currently five rescue vessels in the Maritime Search and Rescue Area (SAR).

Criminalisation of NGOs

Annalisa Camilli is a journalist from Internazionale and an expert in maritime legislation. In recent years he has analyzed in depth the evolution of the rescues in the Mediterranean: "We could talk to the [hitherto Minister of the Interior] fatigue of Salvini's xenophobic policy, but the first to delegitimize rescue operations was not the ultra-right leader. In 2017, the Italian Social Democratic Government and Interior Minister Marco Minniti launched this campaign.” In Camilli’s view, Minniti was the politician who mentioned the alleged cooperation between NGOs and traffickers in Libya. “Rome forced rescue institutions to sign a new regulation called the Code of Ethics. Basically, it established several new rules to make their work more difficult.” This
decision responds, according to Camilli, to political interests: “The general votes for 2018 were very close and the Democratic Party was down in the polls. In 2017 the arrivals doubled and Salvini was causing the ghost of the invasion.” Thus, the Italian Government signed new agreements with the Tripoli Coast Guard, as reported by the Ministry. "They gave them new boats and trained the Libyan coastguards in Italy. Later, Rome considered the SAR area of Libya legal,” Camilli stressed.

This strategy has inevitably led to a decline in arrivals. According to data provided by the Ministry of the Interior of Rome, 4,722 people have arrived in Italy between 1 January and 23 August 2019. In the same period last year, a total of 19,526 tickets were recorded. In 2018, the figure was 98,076. If you look at the statistics for the past three years, the number of travellers has fallen by 95%. However, the number of pirated vessels is closely linked to the political situation in Libya. The Tripoli Government, supported by the European Union and Italy, Fayez Al Sarrajen, is becoming weaker and controls only a small area.

In any case, the political perception of the population is not linked to the arrival of migrants. In fact, at a time when the number of boats has fallen, the far-right has skyrocketed. “Matteo Salvini followed the strategy of the previous government, that is, he expelled the Italian borders and gave Libya the role of border police,” said Camilli. In any case, the ultra-right interior minister put the icing on the campaign of criminalization against the rescue groups and spread the idea of the effect called: “Migrants all flee together because they know that rescue boats are waiting,” he used to repeat.

Closed ports

The coalition government made up of the Lega Party and the 5 Star Movement has promoted the policy of closed ports, which is still in force. “Since last year lifeboats have not been able to land here. It doesn't matter if the nearest port is in Italy. The new Security Decree Bis sets fines of 900,000 euros for ships landing with refugees at sea,” Camilli explained. Malta has copied the same policy and, as a result, many organisations have suspended their rescue operations.
Thus, the number of people drowned at sea increased in percentage. More than 859 people have already died in the Mediterranean in 2019, according to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on 28 August. This means that crossing the sea is more deadly than ever before. In 2018, one in 29 people who left Libya drowned. In 2019, by contrast, one in eight people did. The Mediterranean has absorbed 14,768 migrants since 2014, an increase of 4.1%.

With the new decree on migration, Italy has put the Italian regulations above sea. But the campaign of the former Interior Minister was not limited to criminalising the rescue of the sea. Salvini closed the largest host houses in the vast Italy. Since then, tens of thousands of people have remained on the street. “The seats at the major train stations in Rome and Milan have been filled with fugitives and Salvini has once again shaken the spectre of insecurity. Few migrants arrive from the Mediterranean, but we see more and more in the street. They want to see that the danger of the invasion is still there. The strategy is as cruel as it is effective,” says Camilli.

However, the policy of closed ports has revealed a great contradiction between the two parties. Lampedusa is once again the place that best reflects this reality. Despite the blockade at sea, thousands of fugitives have arrived at small boats over the past year. The Italian media have baptized the demonstrators with the name of "ghost landing". Last June, 1,218 people have arrived on board wooden boats and sailing boats from the Basque Country. Passengers have left Tunisia and Libya, and have successfully overcome the blockade of the sea on the coast. “No one says anything about these landings, let alone Salvini. But when NGO boats ask for berth authorization, it seems to be the end of the world. If the autonomous boats arrive in Lampedusa, why can’t the boats of the rescue teams enter?” asked Salvatore (“Totò”), mayor of Lampedusa. Your question has not yet been answered.