Italy

Rome, November 19, 2009 -- New Italian government policies to curb the influx of migrants have led to a sharp decrease in the number of migrants and refugees arriving by boat to Lampedusa, Italy. As a result, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is withdrawing its team from the island. Between May and October 2008, more than 21,000 migrants and refugees landed on Lampedusa after a perilous journey across the Mediterranean, according to MSF. During the same period this year, MSF teams saw fewer than 200 migrants. MSF is extremely concerned for the fate of migrants reportedly intercepted at sea and prevented from arriving in Italy.

For the sixth consecutive year, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is providing health care to undocumented seasonal migrant workers in southern Italy. Once again, poor living and working conditions pose a serious threat to their mental and physical health.

MSF provided medical immediate assistance to the surviving men and woman who were all suffering from serious health problems as a result of the journey to Italy.

MSF runs emergency medical programs for asylum seekers and migrants on the border shores of a number of countries, calls for minimum standards in their reception, and denounces their systematic detention.

An MSF team consisting of two doctors, two nurses and one cultural mediator is back in Lampedusa, providing medical care to undocumented migrants and asylum seekers landing on the Italian island.