(from correspondent Elvira Terranova) – On one side, dozens of migrants queuing to receive the evening meal distributed by the parish volunteers, and a few meters away, tourists sitting at the tables of a bar to watch the Inter match Milan, while they take a spritz. Someone glances distractedly at the young migrants, others don’t even look at them. Suddenly a woman from Lampedusa arrives, elegantly dressed for the patronal feast, and begins to rail against the migrants: “Go to the reception centre, this is the church. It’s a sacred place. You don’t have to camp out here all day. Here we don’t want you.” Someone looks but doesn’t say anything. Others continue to walk along the street. Meanwhile, the kids, almost all from Central Africa, continue to eat while sitting calmly on the benches in front of the church. In silence. For days they have been queuing in the square where the church of San Gerlando stands, in Lampedusa, for the distribution of lunch and dinner.
For the third consecutive day, the parish volunteers are continuing to distribute pasta and bottles of water to the hundreds of migrants who are not inside the Imbriacola district hotspot. Young people, paper plates in hand, have lunch sitting on benches, but also on the sidewalks.
Meanwhile, the hotspot continues to empty after having reached almost 7,000 in recent days. And between tonight and tomorrow morning, approximately another six hundred people will leave, awaiting the arrival of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and the President of the EU Commission Ursula Von der Leyen, who will arrive on the island tomorrow morning for a reconnaissance tour. Also expected is the arrival of the President of the Sicilian Region, Renato Schifani, with the director of Civil Protection Salvo Cocina.
Source-www.adnkronos.com