Policemen on the migrant hotspot island of Lampedusa have complained they are not getting enough protection after ten officers tested positive for the Wuhan virus.
Currently, 500 migrants live on the island, a hotspot for illegal aliens arriving mainly from Tunisia and Libya, with 60 migrants testing positive for the coronavirus in recent weeks.
As a result, local police unions have expressed anger over a lack of protection for officers from the spread of infection, newspaper Il Giornale reports.
Valter Mazzetti, secretary-general of the Fsp Polizia di Stato union, said of the situation: “The officers on duty in Lampedusa pay for someone’s indifference and superficiality, and it is time for them to find out who, and for this someone to pay.”
“You can’t play with the health of cops like that,” Mazzetti continued, claiming the union had been working since last August to improve conditions and noted that the migrant structure on the island has capacity for just under 200 people but often hosts over a thousand migrants at a time.
Mazzetti went on to add that many of the migrants at the centre do not wear masks. Officers also must remain inside the centre with the illegal aliens to prevent riots, but lamented that ten officers could not stop a thousand migrants from rioting if such an event were to occur.
This year, Italy has seen a surge of asylum seekers arriving compared to the first months of 2020, with Lampedusa seeing nearly double the number of new landings.
As the warmer summer months approach, people-smugglers and traffickers are believed to be using new tactics to advance their business, including putting vulnerable pregnant women on board boats to stir public sympathies and expedite rescue operations in the Mediterranean sea.
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