Population of a city the size of Wells lands on Italy’s shores from Africa in just 3 days

Graham Charles Lear
3 min readSep 16, 2023

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The latest data from Italy’s hard-pressed Interior Ministry on the arrival of illegal boat migrants up to 15 September this year does not bode well. The numbers are truly extraordinary. Even Italy’s so-called ‘far right’ government of Giorgia Meloni seems to be powerless to stop the influx.

The equivalent population of a city the size of Wells has landed on Italy’s shores from Africa — in just three days this week alone. Looking at the detail it is clear these are almost all economic migrants.

One Italian island — Lampedusa — had its population doubled in one day. Meanwhile, on Wednesday the left-wing government of Germany’s Olaf Scholz announced it was shutting its doors to illegal migrants originating from Italy, due to “high migratory pressure.”

1. Italy’s illegal boat migrants, 01 Jan to 15 Sept, 2021–2023

  • 2021: 42,750
  • 2022: 66,237
  • 2023: 127,207

[Sources: Ministero dell’Interno | Dipartimento per le libertà civili e l’immigrazione.]

2. Illegal landings on the first 3 days of this week : 10,071

3. Top 10 nationalities of illegal migrants this year

  1. Guinea: 15,088
  2. Ivory Coast: 14,208
  3. Tunisia: 11,530
  4. Egypt: 8,420
  5. Bangladesh: 7,575
  6. Burkina Faso: 6,783
  7. Pakistan: 6,321
  8. Syria: 5,071
  9. Cameroon: 4,279
  10. Mali: 4,274

[Sources: Ministero dell’Interno | Dipartimento per le libertà civili e l’immigrazione.]

Lampedusa — once popular with British holidaymakers

The Italian island of Lampedusa is beautiful and lies between Sicily and Tunisia.

Lampedusa boasts magnificent beaches. 10 years ago its ‘Rabbit Beach’ was voted the World №1 on TripAdvisor. With a population of about 6,000 people, its main industries are fishing, agriculture, and — previously — tourism.

Now its main business is coping with the thousands of migrants from the African continent who are overwhelming the normal hospitality of the local population.

Make no mistake, across the EU ordinary people share similar concerns to those of people in the UK

Just as in the UK, many citizens of EU countries simply cannot understand why it is not possible to have an equitable, managed immigration policy. The problems go even further in the EU, with countries such as Italy, Greece and Spain seeing a huge increase in the numbers of illegal migrants. The EU Commission has failed for many years to agree on any way forward which all can sign up to.

This week we had the socialist government of Olaf Scholz in Germany closing its doors to re-allocations of illegal migrants from Italy. It’s no wonder Italy’s PM Giorgia Meloni had a meeting with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the G20 summit this week, about his (stalled) Rwanda policy.

A word about the UN

Even 30 years ago it was clear that this UN organisation needed radical reform. Founded in another era, the UN is now so out of touch with popular opinion in the West that it might as well be on a different planet.

From its ‘open borders’ policies to its ‘reparations’ pronouncements to its ‘refugee’ and human rights convention, it is no longer fit for purpose. And that’s before we come to its climate change agenda which would impoverish the British people in perpetuity.

Some bold decisions are clearly now required before it’s too late. Are the UN up to that task? I doubt very much like the EU the UN is now a massive money-making money pit with people enjoying the power they have over people.

It is also a large employer of people just as the EU is

Sources: Ministero dell’Interno | Dipartimento per le libertà civili e l’immigrazione

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Graham Charles Lear
Graham Charles Lear

Written by Graham Charles Lear

What is life without a little controversy in it? Quite boring and sterile would be my answer.