ROME, 01 August 2021, (TON): Nearly 600 migrants reached the Italian island of Lampedusa from Tunisia in only two days.

Countless departures of people fleeing the crisis-wracked North African country and attempting to reach Europe on dinghies and small boats are reported every hour by NGOs and Italian Coast Guard vessels patrolling the Channel of Sicily.

Only on Saturday, by midday, 99 migrants landed in Lampedusa on six different small boats. Before their arrival, 1,137 people were already present at the center in Contrada Imbriacola, well above the facility’s maximum capacity of 250.

Adm. Roberto Isidori, commander of the Coast Guard in Sicily, told media “it seems that there is not much control on the Tunisian shores lately. We have not seen so many dinghies coming toward Lampedusa, and now even trying to reach the south of Sardinia, which is a much further and more dangerous trip, as we have since July 26, when the political crisis broke out in Tunisia.”

Isidori added “our vessels are all out to make sure that no accident happens, but this situation is getting worse and worse.”

Italian security services had estimated at the beginning of the crisis that the ongoing political turmoil and instability in Tunisia may result in a drastic increase in migrants, with numbers potentially reaching up to 15,000 in a very short time.

But Isidori said that “if numbers continue to stay as they have been in the last week, that could be an optimistic forecast.”