Editor’s note: “This is an adapted version of an article originally published in Spanish on the 28th of September, 2023. It takes in an EU policy development that occurred subsequent to the publication of the first article.
In barely two days, between 12 and 14 September, more than 7,000 people arrived in around 120 small boats on the Italian island of Lampedusa, taking the number of arrivals up to 10,000 people by the middle of the month. This was a record-breaking figure for an island of around 6,000 inhabitants. Migrants are kept separate from the local population and identified before being transferred to Sicily or other centres in Italy.
