After the head of the Italian interior ministry's immigration department visited Italy's Lampedusa on November 29, some 56 migrants were apprehended overnight upon their arrival to the island.
Laura Lega, the new head of the Italian interior ministry's Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration, visited Lampedusa and Sicily's Porto Empedocle on Wednesday (November 29).
That same day, Lampedusa registered 56 new migrant arrivals. All were apprehended shortly after reaching the small Italian island.
Lega, who replaces Valerio Valenti in his retirement, was welcomed and accompanied on her tour by Agrigento prefect Filippo Romano and police chief Tommaso Palumbo.
She first visited the former military base Loran, which is considered a possible deposit for the boats used by migrants to cross the Mediterranean.
Later, she inspected the Imbriacola district hotspot and the Favarolo pier at the island's port.
Afterward, Lega, Romano and Palumbo visited Sicily's Empedocle port and a new hotspot in the Caos district.
The facility is nearly ready and will open in a few days, authorities said.
56 new arrivals
Meanwhile 56 migrants were apprehended overnight in Lampedusa's Cala Francese. They were discovered by police shortly after reaching the island.
The migrants, who said they had departed from Libya, are citizens of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Morocco, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Egypt, Syria and Sudan.
The new arrivals were taken to the hotspot in the Imbriacola district.