EU to face rising number of migrants in 2015

The latest warning by the EU agency for the management of operational cooperation at the external borders of the member states has triggered anxiety in Italy over the flow of migrants to Europe.The Frontex has announced that between 500,000 and a million immigrants could try to reach Europe from Libya alone this year.

Italy’s Mediterranean search-and-rescue operation, Mare Nostrum, was dismantled in November after saving over 150,000 lives. The new Mediterranean borders surveillance system Operation Triton which replaced Mare Nostru has proven to be ineffective.

EU border agency, Frontex, has warned that it cannot cope with the migrant emergency in the Mediterranean on its own. The agency has asked for more resources and contribution from the European Union and its member states as the situation becomes more complicated by the day.

Italy’s Foreign Affairs Minister Paolo Gentiloni has said that about
nine-thousand migrants have landed in the country from January to March this year, a significant increase from the 56-hundred cases in the same period last year. The Italian minister has also noted that 170-thousand out of nearly 300-thousand migrants who were on their way to Europe, disembarked on the Italian coast last year.