Local Italian media as well as the ANSA and Adnkronos news agencies reported that several boats reached the coast of the Mediterranean island in the night from Monday (September 27) to Tuesday. The vast majority -- 686 -- of the arrivals came penned up on an old fishing boat and were able to go ashore.

According to ANSA, Italian Guardia di Finanza customs police intercepted the iron 15-meter-long vessel some seven kilometers off the island and escorted it to its port.

Among the migrants -- believed to come from Morocco, Syria, Bangladesh and Egypt -- were women and children, ANSA reported, adding that the boat was believed to have set sail from Libya. Five of the passengers were reportedly brought to a hospital due to their medical condition.

A further 117 people arrived on the island aboard five vessels later Tuesday morning, according to news agency dpa. All of them were taken to an initial reception facility. ANSA reported that more than 1,000 are now at the facility including the new arrivals, although it only has capacity for 250 people. 

"After a few days of bad weather, today with a calm sea the landings have restarted," ANSA quoted Lampedusa Mayor Toto Martello as saying. According to the mayor, the migrants would undergo identity and health checks before being transferred to a quarantine ship, which the Italian Interior Ministry in Rome announced it would send to Lampedusa, ANSA reported.

Earlier this month, Italy started a vaccination drive for all migrants arriving on Lampedusa.

Increase in arrivals, deaths, returns

Migrants and refugees departing from Tunisia or Libya often head for Lampedusa, making the small island one of the main landing points for people trying to enter the EU. Located between Sicily and the Tunisian coast, Lampedusa has one accommodation center for migrants who reach the island after they are rescued at sea or arrive on fishing boats or rubber dinghies.

In recent weeks, migrants have been arriving in Lampedusa in very large numbers, leading to severe overcrowding in the accommodation center.

Earlier this month, the Italian coast guard rescued 125 people, 20 of them minors, from the rocky shore of a tiny uninhabited island near Lampedusa. And at the end of August, more than 500 migrants arrived on Lampedusa in two days, many of them injured and some had scarred from torture.

The number of migrant arrivals to Italy as a whole has also been soaring, with a sharp increase starting in May. In August alone, more than 10,000 people arrived.

According to Italian interior ministry data, close to 45,000 migrants have disembarked on Italy's coasts through September 27 of this year, nearly twice as many as during the same period in the pandemic year 2020 and more than six times as many as at the same point in time in 2019. The vast majority of this year's arrivals were registered on the island of Sicily, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR. Tunisian (28%), Bangladeshi (12%) and Egyptian (9%) were the three largest groups by nationality.

The death toll has been on the rise this year, too: at least 1,392 have perished trying to reach Europe from northern Africa so far this year, according to the UN migration agency IOM. The actual number of deaths is estimated to be a lot higher. The deadliest shipwreck this year took place in April off Libya, when 130 people drowned.

The number of people who attempted to cross the Mediterranean but were forced to return to northern Africa also increased. So far this year, Libya's coast guard has intercepted and brought back to Libya more than 25,000 people including over 1,700 women and 917 minors, according to the latest IOM figures. To put things into perspective, the number has more than doubled compared to all of last year, when close to 12,000 people were intercepted and returned.

Mediterranean governments seek help

In the past, Italy has repeatedly urged other member states of the European Union to cooperate in order to better handle irregular migrant arrivals to Italy by sea.

"International judicial cooperation is fundamental to contain irregular immigration and stem the unprecedented violence and tragic violations of the most basic human rights of the migrants," Luigi Patronaggio, chief prosecutor in the southern Sicilian city of Agrigento, told local media, according to news agency Reuters.

Mediterranean EU countries Italy, Spain and Greece, which receive the bulk of asylum seekers, want not only that other European Union member states to share the burden; they also call for a more equitable migration policy that addresses the root causes driving people to leave their homelands, the AP news agency reported.

Italian Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese, who met with her counterparts from Spain, Malta, Greece and Cyprus this week in Malaga, Spain, spoke of an "urgent" need for a European policy that is equitable and provides "ambitious" financing for border patrols, redistribution and repatriation programs.

With dpa, Reuters, AP