ROME- The Mayor of Rome, Ignazio Marino, on Wednesday, said the Italian government was expecting more than 150,000 migrant landings this year.
Marino said this at a crisis meeting at the Italian Interior Ministry that it would be a near four-fold increase from what the country experienced in 2013. [eap_ad_2] He said “from Jan. 1, we had more than 130,000 arrivals.
“The number keeps growing exponentially and the ministry envisages that by the end of the year, we could get more than 150,000 arrivals.’’
The mayor said the migrant inflow was aggravated by unrest in Syria, the Gaza Strip and the Horn of Africa.
The migrants were supposed to claim asylum, Marino said many slip through the net and travelled to northern Europe to join friends and relatives and take advantage of more generous welfare programmes and better work opportunities.
He said “this has created intra-EU frictions.’’ (dpa/NAN) [eap_ad_3]