Lampedusa is the largest island of the Italian Pelagie Islands in the Mediterranean Sea.
African immigrants in Europe are individuals residing in Europe who were born in Africa. This includes both individuals born in North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.
African emigrants to Italy include Italian citizens and residents originally from Africa. Immigrants from Africa officially residing in Italy in 2015 numbered about 1,000,000 residents. Afro-Italians (Afroitaliani) are born and are raised in Italy, citizen of African descent or of mixed African and Italian roots.
In 2021, Istat estimated that 5,171,894 foreign citizens lived in Italy, representing about 8.7% of the total population. These figures do not include naturalized foreign-born residents as well as illegal immigrants, the so-called clandestini, whose numbers, difficult to determine, are thought to be at least 670,000.
Slavery in Libya has a long history and a lasting impact on the Libyan culture. It is closely connected with the wider context of slavery in North African and trans-Saharan slave trade.
The Ghost boat investigation is a project looking into a group of at least 243 refugees who disappeared in the summer of 2014. None of the missing people have contacted their family members, and there have been no bodies found or wreckage of any kind. One theory is that a people smuggling boat off the coast of Libya, intending to sail to Italy, disappeared without trace. A lack of wreckage is highly unusual for such a large watercraft. Reporter Eric Reidy has been investigating the case by blogging and using crowd sourcing. Bobbie Johnson, a senior editor at Medium, took Reidy's articles and created the Ghost Boat project to help track the missing group of "Ghost boat" refugees. As of December 2015, no trace of the passengers has been found.
On 27 March 2009, at least one boat carrying migrants from Libya to Italy capsized. The boat is believed to have been carrying 250 migrants from Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine and Nigeria. A rescue attempt involving the Italian and Libyan navies rescued 21 survivors from the boat and retrieved 21 bodies. A further 77 bodies subsequently washed up on the shores of Libya before rescue efforts were called off. Two other boats also went missing between Libya and Italy, carrying around 250 more people between them. A fourth boat, carrying 350 people, was rescued by an Italian merchant ship on 29 March in the same area of sea.
The Protector-class coastal patrol boats are a class of coastal patrol boats of the Maritime Squadron of the Armed Forces of Malta. They are 87-foot (27 m) patrol boats based on the Stan 2600 patrol vessel design from the Netherlands shipbuilding firm Damen Group. The Hong Kong Police were the first organization to order vessels based on this design. The United States Coast Guard (USCG) has 73 patrol boats from this class, where they are known as the Marine Protector class. Malta ordered two vessels, and they were built by Bollinger Shipyards to the USCG specifications under the US$13 Million grant from the United States provided by the United States Securities Act of 2000. They were given pennant numbers P51 and P52. In 2013, both patrol boats were upgraded with new equipment including infrared cameras and a rigid hull inflatable boat. The upgrade cost €1.7 million and was co-funded by the European Union’s External Fund.
On 6 April 2011, a boat carrying migrants from Libya to Italy sank 32 nautical miles south of Lampedusa and 96 nautical miles southwest of Malta. An emergency response involving the Italian Coast Guard resulted in the rescue of an initial 48 survivors and the retrieval of 20 bodies. A fishing boat picked up an additional three survivors. At least a further 130 people were not found after the shipwreck.
During the period of 1965 - 2021, an estimated 440,000 people per year emigrated from Africa; a total number of 17 million migrants within Africa was estimated for 2005. The figure of 0.44 million African emigrants per year pales in comparison to the annual population growth of about 2.6%, indicating that only about 2% of Africa's population growth is compensated for by emigration.
Libyan refugees are people who fled or were expelled from their homes since the beginning of the Libyan Crisis in 2011, including during the First Libyan Civil War, that deposed Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, and the Second Libyan Civil War (2014–2020). Many people have been displaced from Libya to neighbouring Tunisia, Egypt and Chad, as well as to European countries across the Mediterranean. The majority of refugees from Libya are Arabs, though many others are sub-Saharan African migrants who were living in Libya. These groups were also among the first refugee waves to exit the country. The total number of Libyan refugees was estimated at around one million in June 2011, with most returning to Libya after the First Civil War ended. In January 2013, there were 5,252 refugees originating from Libya alongside 59,425 internally displaced persons registered by the UNHCR.
On 3 October 2013, a boat carrying migrants from Libya to Italy sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa. It was reported that the boat had sailed from Misrata, Libya, but that many of the migrants were originally from Eritrea, Somalia and Ghana. An emergency response involving the Italian Coast Guard resulted in the rescue of 155 survivors. On 12 October it was reported that the confirmed death toll after searching the boat was 359, but that further bodies were still missing; a figure of "more than 360" deaths was later reported.
During 2015, there was a period of significantly increased movement of refugees and migrants into Europe. 1.3 million people came to the continent to request asylum, the most in a single year since World War II. They were mostly Syrians, but also included significant numbers of Afghans, Nigerians, Pakistanis, Iraqis, Eritreans, and the Balkans. The increase in asylum seekers has been attributed to factors such as the escalation of various wars in the Middle East and ISIL's territorial and military dominance in the region, as well as the Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt ceasing to accept Syrian asylum seekers.
Operation Mare Nostrum was a year-long naval and air operation commenced by the Italian government on 18 October 2013, which rescued at least 150,000 migrants on the dangerous Mediterranean sea crossing. The operation ended on 31 October 2014, and was superseded by Frontex's Operation Triton.
Fire at Sea is a 2016 Italian documentary film directed by Gianfranco Rosi. It won the Golden Bear at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Academy Awards. It was also selected as the Italian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the awards but it was not nominated in that category.
This is a timeline of the European migrant crisis of 2015 and 2016.
Immigration to Malta has increased significantly over the past decade. In 2011, immigration contributed to 4.9% of the total population of the Maltese islands in 2011, i.e. 20,289 persons of non-Maltese citizenship, of whom 643 were born in Malta. In 2011, most of migrants in Malta were EU citizens, predominantly from the United Kingdom.
Pietro Bartolo, OMRI, is an Italian doctor and politician who was elected as a member of the European Parliament in 2019 for the Democratic Party.
"Refugees as weapons", or "Weapon of Mass Migration" is a term used to describe a hostile government organizing, or threatening to organize, a sudden influx of refugees into another country or political entity with the intent of causing political disturbances in that entity. The responsible country usually seeks to extract concessions from the targeted country and achieve some political, military, and/or economic objective.
