Italy announced on Monday that it has adopted an emergency plan to help cope with the influx of refugees and migrants arriving at its shores.
The refugees and migrants will be distributed among the country’s 110 provinces and they will be settled given the infrastructure that is currently available, including the buildings and housing units provided by municipalities, non-governmental organisations and religious institutions, according to a statement issued by the ministry.
In the first five months of this year, 42,000 refugees and migrants entered Italy via the Mediterranean Sea, the ministry said in its statement, adding that 105,000 people are still awaiting decisions on their refugee status.
Italian state television reported that the government is considering using property that has been confiscated from organised crime groups to house refugees and migrants, especially women and children and full families.
Italian media outlets reported earlier on Monday that Italian coastguards, as well as other international coastguard teams in the area, have rescued around 13,000 refugees and migrants at sea since the beginning of this week.
Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.
