Italy migrant arrivals plummet as leaders meet in EU-Africa summit

ROME, Nov. 30 (Xinhua) -- Migrant arrivals dropped 32.35 percent in the 11 months ending in November this year compared to the same period of 2016, the Italian Interior Ministry reported Thursday.

The new data came as Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni and other European leaders gathered at the 5th African Union-European Union Summit in the Ivory Coast capital of Abidjan, where combating migrant traffickers was on the agenda.

A total of 117,042 migrants and asylum seekers reached Italy between the January-November period this year, compared to 173,008 arrivals in the same period last year, the Interior Ministry reported on its official website.

A majority of new arrivals to Italy this year said they are Nigerian, followed in descending order by people from Guinea, Ivory Coast, Bangladesh, Mali, Eritrea, Sudan, Tunisia, Senegal and Gambia, according to the Interior Ministry.

Every year, thousands of men, women and children fleeing war and poverty in their home countries pay human traffickers exorbitant prices to smuggle them into Europe.

Survivors of the perilous journey to Italy report serious human rights abuses suffered at the hands of the human traffickers, who hold them in Libyan detention camps and torture them in order to extort more money from their families back home.

Earlier this month, the international community was shocked at the emergence of a video shot in a Libyan detention camp, in which African migrants were auctioned off as slaves.

That footage placed the issue of migrant trafficking even more squarely on the EU-AU summit agenda.

In a statement posted on the summit's official website, African Union Commission President Moussa Faki Mahamat strongly condemned the migrant slave auction, and said the African Union is "determined to spare no effort" to combat the traffickers.

This sentiment was echoed by Italy's Gentiloni. "Confirmation of the friendship between our countries and commitment to development and against human trafficking," the Italian prime minister tweeted along with a photo of himself shaking hands with Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara.

Italy has been bearing the brunt of the migration flows, because its southernmost islands are the nearest landfall to Africa.

The thousands fleeing across the Mediterranean prompted the EU in 2015 to set up an emergency trust fund for Africa "due to ongoing unprecedented levels of irregular migration".

"The Trust Fund aims to help foster stability in the regions to respond to the challenges of irregular migration and displacement," according to the European Commission. Enditem