Migration UN Radio

"Welcome to beautiful Lampedusa", says the sign inside the arrivals' hall of the Lampeduza airport. Lampedusa is an upmarket resort between Sicily and North Africa. It belongs to Italy, but is nearer to Tunisia than Sicily. It is renowned for its splendid beaches and diving and, increasingly, for the boatloads of desperate migrants smuggled there from North Africa. Of course clandestine migrants receive a completely different reception than tourists…
Following a short transit in Lampeduza’s reception center, the authorities ferry the migrants from Lampedusa to Sicily and allow some of them to apply for asylum. In November 2007, UN Radio’s producer Maha Fayek visited Lampedusa and the reception center three days after the arrival of a group of migrants from North Africa. She was escorted on her short visit to the Transit center by Cristiano Gentili, who works for the IOM…. From www.un.org/radio.