The Meloni government has blocked nearly 200,000 migrants from crossing the Mediterranean to Italy since coming to power two years ago, the country’s interior minister has said.
Italy has given hundreds of millions of euros in aid, trade and investment to Tunisia and Libya, in return for which both countries have endeavoured to stop migrant boats from leaving their shores.
The accords are highly controversial from a human rights point of view.
Campaigners have accused Tunisia of rounding up sub-Saharan migrants and dumping them in the desert, while Libya has been accused of keeping them in filthy holding centres where they are subjected to torture and beatings.
But the strategy appears to have been successful in drastically reducing the number of migrants and refugees who reach Italy.
“It is a positive picture and the numbers bear that out,” said Matteo Piantedosi, the interior minister in the Right-wing government led by Giorgia Meloni.
He told La Stampa newspaper: “In 2024, we reduced the number of irregular arrivals by 60 per cent compared to the year before and by 38 per cent compared to 2022.”
The number of rejected asylum seekers who were sent back to their home countries increased by 16 per cent.
He said: “These are the result of targeted policies… including close cooperation with the police forces of countries of origin and transit, which in two years have resulted in blocking the departure of 192,000 irregular migrants from Libya and Tunisia who were hoping to reach our shores.”
Italy was also helping transit countries, including Libya and Tunisia, to send migrants back to their home countries, with more than 21,000 repatriations in 2024.
Ms Meloni came to power two years ago with a pledge to cut the number of boats crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa.
As part of that policy, her government has been at the forefront of a deal brokered by the EU to provide more than a billion euros in financial aid to Tunisia, including help in better policing the country’s land and sea borders.
Since then, the Tunisian coast guard has said that it has intercepted tens of thousands of migrants and refugees, stopping them from setting out on the dangerous sea crossing to Italy.
Human rights groups have criticised the deal as “blackmail”, saying that it has worsened the treatment of the tens of thousands of migrants who are stuck in Tunisia hoping to reach Europe.
The EU has also been criticised for working with Kais Saied, Tunisia’s autocratic president, who has accused sub-Saharan migrants of being part of a shadowy plot to erase his country’s cultural and ethnic identity.
In Libya, which has been wracked by chaos since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, there have long been accusations by human rights groups that the coast guard is corrupt, brutal and complicit in the exploitation of the tens of thousands of migrants who try to reach Italy each year.
Money pledged to other African countries
The EU has also pledged money to other African countries, including Egypt and Mauritania, for aid projects and improved border security to tackle the trafficking of migrants.
Despite the crackdown, many boats still leave the coast of North Africa and migrants continue to lose their lives when the vessels capsize and sink.
On Tuesday, two Tunisian migrants, one of them a five-year-old child, died after their boat broke down off the country’s northern coast.
Another 17 migrants were rescued. They were probably trying to reach the Italian island of Lampedusa, which is just 90 miles from the Tunisian coast.
There has been a spate of recent shipwrecks on the route.
On Dec 18, at least 20 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa died in a shipwreck off the city of Sfax, with five others missing.
The coast guard rescued 27 African migrants north of Sfax, but 15 were reported dead or missing a week before.
Around 700 migrants died in Tunisian waters in 2024, while more than 1,300 lost their lives in 2023, according to Tunisian human rights groups.
Albania project
Italy hopes to further discourage migrants from trying to reach its shores with the construction of two holding centres in Albania.
The project, intended to act as a deterrent to economic migrants, was supposed to be up and running several months ago but has been challenged by European and Italian courts.
For now, the detention centres lie empty, with opposition MPs in Italy accusing the government of wasting hundreds of millions of euros of taxpayers’ money.
Ms Meloni has said she remains confident that the legal challenges can be overcome and that the two centres will be able to start processing thousands of migrants in the next few months.
The Albania scheme has attracted the interest of other European countries, including Britain, which are struggling to prevent unauthorised migration.
“The centres are an important part of our strategy of fighting irregular immigration,” said Mr Piantedosi, who insisted that the courts would eventually decide in Italy’s favour and allow the Albania plan to resume.
Another migrant boat sank in the Mediterranean on Tuesday. Seven people were rescued but at least 20 others are missing at sea, including five women and three children.
Survivors were brought to the island of Lampedusa. Among them was an eight-year-old Syrian boy. His mother was feared to have drowned. They were reportedly hoping to join her husband and the boy’s father, who lives in Germany.
Filippo Mannino, the mayor of Lampedusa, said: “They didn’t make it to shore. Knowing that these poor souls were so close, but couldn’t make it is even more heartbreaking.”
The boat had departed from the Libyan town of Zuwara late on Monday but got into difficulty in the early hours of Tuesday and capsized.
Last year, 66,000 migrants reached Italy by sea. That compares with 157,000 in 2023 and 105,000 in 2022.
