(ANSAmed) - ROME, DECEMBER - The United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) asked the Italian government
Tuesday to find urgent solutions to improve the handling of
refugees at the Lampedusa reception center. The UN agency
stressed that migrants should be transferred out of the center
after a maximum of 48 hours to other centers more suitably
equipped across the entire country.
The UNHCR noted that the Contrada Imbriacola center had been
built to provide initial reception to migrants and asylum
seekers rescued at sea while awaiting their transfer to other
centers while their cases are examined.
In the absence of a system for the rapid transferal of
migrants off the island, it said, extremely poor conditions
regularly arise, especially due to the possibility of further
arrivals.
UNHCR's Regional Representative for South Europe, Laurens
Jolles, noted that the agency had been asking Italy for years to
speed up transfers from Lampedusa.
''The overcrowding constantly seen is unsustainable and
creates a situation in which, despite the efforts of
humanitarian aid workers, the assistance provided is severely
below minimum standards,'' he said.
Works to enlarge the center - which the UNHCR has been
requesting since 2011 and which had recently begun - have been
suspended due to the exceeding high number of migrants housed
within it. The UNHCR has asked that the reception center go back
to its original capacity of 850 places to prevent a single
landing from creating serious overcrowding with poor hygienic
conditions and people forced to sleep outside near the center.
The UNHCR also expressed concern over the situation of 26
Syrians and Eritreans - some of whom are survivors of the
October shipwrecks - that have been in the Lampedusa center for
over two months so as to be available for questioning by
magistrates.
Jolles noted that ''it is incomprehensible that these people,
some of whom survivors of a tragedy of enormous proportions, are
still stuck on Lampedusa without their being guaranteed the
tranquility needed to overcome trauma and try to recreate a life
with dignity.'' (ANSAmed).
