Recent situation of the „refugee crisis“

Under Article. 1, lett. a) of the 1951 Geneva Convention, a refugee is «a person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it».

The Genova Convention defines refugees as people who live outside their country of origin, who cannot or do not want to come back home due to a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. Under the same treaty, asylum-seekers are defined as individuals who move through borders seeking international protection. Since they often do not fall within the strict criteria laid down in the Geneva Convention, international organizations and governments had to envisage new categories and forms of subsidiary and humanitarian protection.

International instability and increased possibilities for geographical mobility are among the causes of the increase in the movement of asylum seekers. In addition to this, it should be borne in mind that the reduced opportunities for immigration for work and family reunification have indirectly led to a greater use of the road of the request for international protection as a gateway to advanced developing countries. The flows to Europe and Italy, globally modest and selective, are also closely linked to the reduced opportunities for immigration for work and family reunification, which, indirectly, have led to greater use of the road of the political or humanitarian refugee as a gateway to advanced developing countries (Ambrosini, 2014).

Arrivals in Italy increased from 22.343 in 1997 to 181.436 in 2016, and then decreased again to 119.369 in 2017, and to the 9.070 of last April after the adoption of the bilateral agreement between Italy and Libya (and the subsequent agreements between Mali and Niger)¹ in July 2017.

Moving on to the data analysis, it is vital to point out that the Department for the Civil Freedoms and Immigration of the Ministry of the Interior mainly focuses on arrivals by sea, neglecting the arrivals by land from the Balkan route and other EU countries.
When the data at disposal is cautiously being put together with the number of foreigners residing in Italy at the end of 2015 (5.026.153), it becomes evident that arrivals by sea hardly represent more than 3% of the full amount of foreign people in Italy.
In mid-February, 2018, the number of individuals in the Italian reception system were 179.936 (EU Parliamentary Committee, 2018), many of whom arrived in Italy since a long time and now experiencing security issues: they represent 3,5% of migrant population in Italy and 0,29% of the entire population. In 2015, the acquisitions of Italian citizenship by foreign individuals, representing the culmination of the migratory path, have increased to 178.000 compared the 155.000 landed and the 176.000 admitted to the reception system.

It is remarkable how the changes occurred in the migration routes and the points of departure have deeply influenced the national composition of people migrating into our country. The migration routes are often imagined and defined according to the conceivable combinations of desires and opportunities available. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has carried out a research on the socio-economic profile of migrants arrived in Italy over the last decades , from which it seems clear that most of the interviewed has left their home countries without a set destination in mind. Only a few did actually think of emigrating to Italy from the start, whereas more than 25% wanted to stay in Libya.

Migration routes are not planned in advance, but rather change from time to time according to the willingness of human traffickers. In some cases, the interviewed migrants did not even know the country they were being taken to and were forced to continue their journey until they got to Italy (Achilli et al., 2016). When this kind of migration occurs, mobility is in progress and external events are what drive the decision to migrate.

In 2014, the first three nationalities declared after landing were Syrian, Eritrean and Malian. In 2015 these data have changed, so we find the Eritrean nationality in the first place, closely followed by the Nigerian and the Malian ones. In 2016 Nigeria surpassed Eritrea, then in the second place, while Guinea was third. In 2017 the top nationalities declared after landing were Nigeria, Guinea, Ivory Coast and Bangladesh, while today, April 2018, they are Tunisia, Eritrea and Nigeria.