After a meeting with local leaders, Valenti discussed a series of measures that will be taken in the region. Several actions will be taken in order to create at least a thousand spots for migrants in reception facilities in Italy's southern region of Calabria within the next month.

The decision was made last week during a meeting in which special commissioner for the migrant emergency Valerio Valenti took part alongside the five prefects of the Calabria region, Undersecretary for Internal Affairs Wanda Ferro, regional governor Roberto Occhiuto, and the regional civil protection and fire squad chiefs.

To begin immediately with existing facilities

"We will start immediately with urgent work on the Crotone facilities previously used in part for this purpose. We will also increase spots available by using former identification and expulsion facilities as well as new facilities for housing [migrants] prior to repatriation, applying fast-track border procedures included in the Cutro decree," Valenti said at the end of the meeting.

He added that more spots will be made available in "Vibo Valentia, which at the moment is equipped for initial emergency reception purposes and undergo work to be used also for initial reception. The Reggio [Calabria] prefect has also begun a series of works on facilities in several locations."

More areas ready in the coming weeks

"All of this, obviously, is not enough," Valenti stressed.

"However, the region has pledged to select further areas in which to create, including using housing modules, new facilities. We are confident that within a month at the most we will be able to have a significant increase in places," he added.

"We have also created a sort of steering committee alongside the regional government and the fire squad and Invitalia (the government agency tasked with attracting investment and business development, Ed.), in order to understand how long this will take. What is certain is that this will be a matter of weeks and not months," he added.

As concerns the outlook for migrant flows, Valenti said that the "pause seen in recent days will not last long." The commissioner noted, nonetheless, that the pause had served to "move forward on the works on Lampedusa that the Red Cross is engaged in to give back an entirely new facility" and that "we are confident that this is continuing."