Italy after ‘anti-migrant’ violence – UN to investigate

Amidst the influx of Syrian refugees fleeing political persecution, looking for a new home has proven to come with some caveats. Germany has had several instances of anti-migrant activity:

“A Syrian man has been brutally attacked in the German city of Wismar as clashes between anti-migrant demonstrators and counter-protesters sparked another night of violence.

According to Rostock police, the 20-year-old was walking home when he was stopped by three German-speaking people who started hurling racial abuse at him.”

UN is to dispatch teams to investigate if unethical treatment of migrants and refugees is occurring among both Italy and Austria (Independent, 2018).

Recently, Italy closed off seaports to NGOs that are to supply aid and rescue migrants and refugees (Independent, 2018). Consequently, actions like these have correlated with an increase in migrant deaths:

“Even though we are seeing a big drop in the numbers coming from Libya over the past 12 months, the numbers of those who died during the crossing is higher in the first six months of 2018 than it was.”

There is an influx of migrants, beyond Syrian, who are looking for safety in Italy. Such a large cultural migration has proven to be unsustainable by the Italian government. Matteo Salvini, Interior minister of Italy, claims:

“the landing and taking in of hundreds of thousands of ‘non-refugees’ cannot continue to be an exclusively Italian issue”

“as of June of this year, is looking to deport half a million undocumented immigrants,” (BBC, 2018).

Although it seems as though Italy is dismissing any further migration to its country, they have been more accepting of newcomers to their nation than most EU nations.

“Italy in the last years has accepted 700,000 immigrants, many of them clandestine, and has never received the collaboration of other European countries,” he added. “We, therefore, do not accept lessons from anyone, let alone from the UN” – Matteo Salvini, Italy Interior Minister

Negative rhetoric from Michelle Bachelet, UN high commissioner for human rights, says that Italy’s actions to block off NGO support are hurting the situation (BBC). However, Italy has prevailed as being the predominant host for asylum seekers, wherein 2017, Italy received 67% of the EU’s migrant arrivals” (BBC). Italy is looking primarily for total EU participation during this European migrant crisis. Due to citizen hostility, the UN is still to investigate the possible presence of unethical treatment of migrants. This will set a precedent for the UN, in hopes to resolve future conflict involving the ethical treatment of immigrants in Europe.