Child Migrants Flood Italy

ITALY – The flood of asylum seekers arriving in the Italian island of Lampedusa continues unabated, many of them children travelling without their parents or guardians, according to officials.

The U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said more than 11,600 children crossed the Mediterranean Sea to Italy without their parents between January and mid-September 2023, an increase of 60 percent on the same period last year.

Between June and August this year, at least 990 people including children died or disappeared as they attempted to cross the Mediterranean, triple the number compared to the same period last summer when at least 334 people lost their lives.