Are 20,000 migrants and asylum seeker arrivals in Italy (and Europe) too many?

While Italy struggles to deal with the emergency in Lampedusa who has seen more than 20,000 arrivals since mid January when the crisis in North Africa started, EU ministers are debating whether the EU can take any people fleing the war in Libya but also the overall political crisis in Tunisia and Egypt. It is englightening to have a look at numbers of people who are temporarily displaced or returning to their own country of origin or going to a third county.

Thus compared to the 20,000+ who arrived in Italy, there are more than 180,000 of people who have crossed the Libyan-Tunisian and the Libyan-Egyptian borders in seek of temporary protection. During the last days, 6,000 Libyans are leaving their country (the UNHCR reports of 6,000 people at camps in Tunisia).

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) estimates that 543,000 people have left Libya during the crisis of which the IOM has managed to assist about 115,000. however there are currently at least “20,000 Chadians stranded in eastern Libya, including women and children with another 30,000 Chadians in Ghatroun in a desperate state. Thousands more migrants are in Tripoli who need to be evacuated, and this is not forgetting the growing numbers of migrants at the borders with Tunisia and Egypt and those crossing into Niger and Chad who require help. Despite several requests we are back to square one on funding.” (IOM press release of 19 April 2011)

This at least gives to the ‘huge’ numbers arriving in Lampedusa a sense of proportion – what it means for the 5,000 inhabitants of Lampedusa to ‘host’ 6,000 people at anyone time and have had 20,000 people pass through their island in a few weeks – but also what it means for Italy, France and the entire EU to host these 20,000 immigrants and refugees from North Africa.