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Italy Minister of Interior: Number of illegal immigrants from Tunisia decreases by 27%

March 31, 2022 at 4:08 pm

Italian Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese in Luxembourg on 8 October 2021 [ARIS OIKONOMOU/AFP/Getty Images]

Italian Minister of Interior, Luciana Lamorgese, confirmed, on Wednesday 30 March 2022, that the illegal immigration flows towards the Italian coasts from Libya, Tunisia and Algeria are in an ongoing decline since last November.

During a hearing before the Parliamentary Committee to monitor the implementation of the Schengen Agreement, supervising Europol activities and control of immigration, the Minister said, “We witnessed a decrease in immigration pressure of those coming from Tunisia after a tendency began in September 2021, and reinforced in the first two months of this year 2022.”

“From 1 January to 29 March, the number of 1,494 Tunisians arrived in Italy, while the number of arrivals in the same period last year was 2,080, with a decrease of 27 per cent,” Lamorgese added.

The Minister stated that the downward trend was also for arrivals from Libya, confirming that this March, 437 immigrants from Libya had arrived, noting that their number was 1,505 in March of the last year.

She pointed out that only 55 immigrants from Algeria have been recorded since the beginning of 2022, compared to 253 in the same period last year, confirming that no immigrant from Algeria has been recorded in the past two months.

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The Minister stated that the number of immigrants who reached Italy from 1 January to March 2022 amounted to 6,701 immigrants, and another 3,323 as a result of search and rescue operations. She said that 1,595 of them reached after the intervention of non-governmental organisation’s ships, stressing that the self-docking operations amounted to 3,378.

Lamorgese added that the number of immigrants who arrived in Italy in 2021 amounted to 67,477 immigrants, confirming that the majority of immigrants are still sailing from the coasts of Libya and Tunisia.