Fake news, Covid-19 give ammunition to far-right propaganda on Italy’s Lampedusa

Far-right groups are exploiting the situation in Lampedusa more than ever before, telling locals that migrants are bringing Covid-19 with them and ruining the island, as Federica Marsi reports

Migrants wait to board a coast guard ship off Lampedusa island (AP)

On Italy’s southernmost island of Lampedusa, an increase in migrant arrivals that stretched reception facilities beyond capacity has stoked fears of a new crisis, giving the extreme right new fodder for its anti-migrant rhetoric.

An immigration centre, built to host 96 people, has been used to house up to 10 times that number over the summer, a situation described by the island’s mayor, Toto Martello as “untenable”.  

It is seven years since the heartbreaking shipwreck off the island’s coast cost the lives of 368 migrants, many of them fleeing desperate situations in Eritrea and Somalia. The tragedy on 3 October 2013, at the time prompted an outpouring of solidarity for the plight of migrants, but today political tensions on Lampedusa are at boiling point.

Smoking a cigar at his office the left-wing mayor said no government had shown political willingness over the years to tackle the thorny issue of migration. This has left Lampedusa — which is closer to north Africa than to mainland Italy — feeling increasingly isolated.

Tensions with Rome boiled over in September, when Mr Martello threatened a general strike to obtain the relocation of over 1,200 migrants from the reception facility, highlighting years of failure to efficiently manage arrivals.

The government’s failure to adequately manage migrant arrivals has left Lampedusa living in a protracted state of emergency, which the far-right has been banking on.

“Immigration has always been the normalcy in Lampedusa, but now there is a campaign tailored at stoking tensions,” he said.

Under the gaze of the gargantuan Virgin Mary statue that overlooks the port, supporters of Matteo Salvini’s right-wing League party staged protests over the summer as authorities disembarked migrants. Tensions climaxed on 30 August, when over 360 migrants arrived aboard a fishing boat — an event the island has not witnessed in years.

By then, the reception centre had been stretched way beyond capacity and concerns over the containment of coronavirus among migrants – who at times made trips to local stores and supermarkets – were worrying the island’s 6,000 residents.

Angela Maraventano, a former senator with the right-wing League party, laid sheets and pillows on the ground at the port and resolved to block the passage for the night. “Enough is enough,” local media reported her saying. “This island has been ruined.”

Police were deployed to clear the area, but tweets and videos had already gone viral.

This, coupled with Mr Salvini’s claim on social media that migrants with Covid-19 were “walking among tourists” in Lampedusa, led to a drop in tourist reservation the mayor estimated at around 40 per cent compared to last year.

Infections among migrants have made up less than 5 per cent of Italy’s total caseload in the first half of August as migrants are swiftly tested upon arrival. Those who have contracted the virus are quarantined on five cruise boats at sea. No tests were required for tourists coming from high-risk regions in Italy.

“We were obliged to refute claims that migrants spread Covid-19, put forward even by the police union,” Mr Martello said.

But these stories have not been the wildest circulating on the island. A right-wing mainstream newspaper, Libero, published unfunded claims that migrants had barbecued a resident’s dog.

The alleged “scoop” -  later disproved - alleged the culprits were Muslims on the basis that they had left the pigs unscathed.

Vito Fiorino, a 72-year-old ice-cream shop owner who rescued 47 migrants from the shipwreck in 2013, told The Independent these episodes should be taken as a sign that, “as they are, things are not working out”.

In 2019, Mr Salvini’s League bagged over 45 per cent of the ballots because “residents here feel abandoned by the institutions”, including the government and the European Union, Mr Fiorino said.

Immigration has always been the normalcy in Lampedusa, but now there is a campaign tailored at stoking tensions

Toto Martello, mayor

Back in the 1990s, when Tunisians and Libyans began arriving on small fishing boats, fishermen brought them food, beers and cigarettes. Some among the 6,000 residents even welcomed them into their homes, and brotherly bonds were formed, he remembered.

In time, the boats became bigger, and so did the problems. In 2011, as the Arab Spring kicked off in Tunisia, the migrant population rose to double that of the residents. The newcomers, many of them young men, slept rough on the hills overlooking the pristine beaches.

To this day, residents of Lampedusa talk of “going back to 2011” as their biggest nightmare.

But 3 October 2013, sparked sympathy for the migrant plight and led the Italian government to establish the Mare Nostrum rescue operation.

Mr Fiorino was sailing with friends for early-morning fishing when he was confronted with the paralysing sight of hundreds of hands reaching out for help. “I was made to play God, choosing who to rescue and who to leave behind,” he told The Independent. Him and his friends saved 47 people that night.

Mare Nostrum — “our sea” in Latin, after the ancient Roman name for the Mediterranean — lasted a year after failing to garner support from European neighbours.

Anti-refugee politics came to the fore in 2016 and, by the time Mr Salvini became interior minister early in 2018, the idea that NGOs were “taxi boats” ferrying migrants to Europe had come to dominate Italy’s migration policy. The slogan “chiudete i porti” (close the ports) became a rallying cry for far-right activists across Europe.

Salvini is currently facing trial for denying the rescue boat Gregoretti to disembark 131 migrants last year. A preliminary hearing took place in the Sicilian city of Catania on 3 October, just as the commemoration ceremony held annually for the victims of the shipwreck was under way in Lampedusa.

At present, no NGOs have permission to depart from Italian coasts to operate search and rescue missions. In the span of a week in September, at least 200 people have died in five shipwrecks between Libya and Europe and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) estimates that in 2020 on average 10 people a week die or go missing trying to cross the Central Mediterranean Sea.

Giorgia Linardi, spokesperson for Sea Watch in Italy, told The Independent, “all Italian rescue vessels have been affected by the government oppressive strategy, which prevents [us] from operating on the basis of false pretexts.”

The European Union has recently put forward a new migration pact revising its approach to migration and asylum. Experts have criticised some of its aspects, particularly the faster border procedures and emphasis on repatriation.

Ms Linardi said the pact reaffirms Italy’s discriminatory policy against NGOs.

For residents of Lampedusa, the greatest worry is that the new timeline of 12 days to evaluate migrant’s claims may mean islands will be required to host migrants for the entire length of the procedure.

This fear, coupled with the arrival of large numbers of Tunisians due to their country’s collapsing economy in the aftermath of the pandemic, has rekindled fears of “going back to 2011”.

For Paola Pizzicori, a resident of the island and marine biologist, it is apparent that change is needed. “No one could be in favour of this type of migration,” she said, waving her hand in the direction of the port.

“We must find a more sustainable solution, for residents and for migrants alike.”