MILAN – Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on Wednesday said he feared an immigrant exodus on a biblical scale if Moamer Gaddafi is ousted, predicting up to 300,000 Libyans could try to flee their country. Italy is already grappling with a mass influx of immigrants from Tunisia since the fall of its veteran ruler but Frattini said that would be nothing compared to the number of immigrants that could flee neighbouring Libya. “There would be an exodus of biblical proportions, a problem that Italy cannot, must not underestimate,” Frattini told the Corriere della Sera daily.
“We know what awaits us when the Libyan regime falls: a wave of 200-300,000 immigrants. That would be ten times the number of Albanians in the 1990s” who headed to Italy following the demise of the communist regime in Tirana.
Libya shut down illegal immigration flows across the Mediterranean to Italy after signing a friendship treaty with its former colonial overlord in 2008 that facilitated massive investments between the two countries. But Italian fears that the flow would resume if Gaddafi is ousted have been fuelled by the arrival of thousands of Tunisians on the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa since Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was toppled last month.
The boatloads of immigrants have overwhelmed authorities on the tiny island and prompted Italy to appeal for emergency funds from the European Union. Frattini’s comments came as Italy hosted a meeting of interior ministers from six southern European nations who all fear they will be one of the main ports of call of any fresh immigrant exodus. As well as the Italian minister, counterparts from France, Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Malta gathered in Rome on the eve of talks in Brussels which should feature all 27 EU interior ministers. The aim of the meeting was to reach “a common line”, the Italian interior ministry said.
Italy fears ‘biblical’ immigrant exodus after Gaddafi
