A flotilla of flimsy boats, crowded with migrants and launched from Tunisia, overwhelmed a tiny southern Italian island on Wednesday, taxing the coast guard's capability to intercept the smugglers' vessels and testing Premier Giorgia Meloni's pledge to thwart irregular migration.
Compounding the political pressure on Italy's first post-war far-right leader were vows by France and Germany to rebuff migrants who arrive by sea on Italian shores, and, in defiance of European Union asylum system rules, head northward to try to find jobs or relatives.
