now Italy's Prime Minister has warned Europe will be overwhelmed by migration unless the EU finds Solutions Italy currently receives the largest number of people Smugglers boats carrying Asylum Seekers and other migrants into Europe many people then try to travel onto countries including Germany France or the UK our correspondent Mark loen has been to two border locations where migrants are trying to cross preparing they hope their footsteps to Freedom they trod the long path of desperation to Europe but even now in Italy they want to go on to France and Beyond numbers here have doubled since
last year armed with their dreams and Ki from this charity to cross the tough Alpine border I come with myself Omar from Nigeria went via Libya paying Smugglers $800 to reach the southern Italian island of lampeduza his aim to get to Britain I just want to have a good life to study there but have you not seen all the pictures and have you not heard about people being sent back from Britain or sent back from France yes I seen but you know I will just try my best to do I will try again to go
some fail early an Egyptian is sent back but the checks this side a rare volunteer Elena says the Italian police seem to turn a blind eye they know exactly what we do here they know exactly what these people are here for so it's it's like a game somehow they know but they they pretend not to know a short bus ride and they're at the border but most avoid the official Crossing fearing police instead they scatter into the forest waiting to dash over the Alps the pull of Europe leads through perilous paths that have already taken
the lives of some seeking new ones others try a different route across further south in ventimilia close to nce but on the French side controls a stringent each train is checked leaving no door open it is a constant to and fro the Italian authorities happy enough to see the migrants cross here into France no longer their responsibility only for the French police to say we don't want them either and to send them back across the border but caught in the middle of Europe's game of cat and mouse are the desperate they may have failed today
but whatever the impediment it is likely they will keep on trying the EU is not working each country is setting its own migration limits and Italy has to shoulder the burden alone France suspended free movement at this border and we are forced to take back huge numbers which is only slowing the flow to Cali in Britain not solving it migrants have spat and urinated in the cemetery we've reached our limit we could become the lampedusa of the North in the Alps the Red Cross helps ease the Long Cold wait to cross Europe is facing a
new bottleneck here and whatever its leaders seem to do hope and determination are proving impossible to extinguish mark in BBC news on the Italy France border we live now to Oxford where we can speak to Nando seona professor of international migration at the University of Birmingham Professor welcome to you thanks very much for being with us well Italy alone the number of arrivals is nearly double that of last year why we' seen well we have had coid we have had the food and energy crisis we have had a series of events that have really sort
of destabilized the economies of several countries if you look at the the profile of the people that are crossing the Mediterranean and compare it with the people that came like 10 years ago during the the first so-called Refugee crisis you can see that there is many more countries that are involved so there is clear sign of a broader Global crisis going on that is producing this forms of Mobility this this time around so are you saying that most of the migrants now heading towards Europe are economic migrants seeking a better life rather than fleeing war
no I'm saying that there are causes that these are survival migrants people have been pushing out the countries because of of climate change we have seen several instances of of severe weather weather we've seen sort of droughts Etc so it it's about how do you define refugees it's clearly that we're seeing new forms of migration of desperation and people try because there is not much left for them back home um so it's yeah you can call it these are people that are pushing the boundaries oh who is a refugee at the moment in a sense
Italy's Prime Minister as we heard in that report there is warning that Europe will be overwhelmed by these numbers if something isn't done I mean we've got governments across Europe struggling with this issue are there any solutions any policies in place that are working the situation I mean if you look at the way that the Ukrainian refugees have been welcomed in several European countries you could see that that is a good model and to think about and way to plan the reception of people migrants and refugees we can also say that that moment a lot
of the tension we are seeing in Italy it's very much also linked to well the forcoming European election and the tension with Germany and France that we have seen in the last few months around these issues the alliance of Mone with Orban and sort of the rightwing politician in Europe so you can see how the tension is growing and migrants are often used as a as a weapon in this sort of european-wide political battle yeah this year alone it's estimated 2 and a half thousand people have died trying to reach the EU it's a staggering
number isn't it is that at all in any way putting people off from making often very perilous Journeys the the thing that we need to know is where those uh tragic accidents has occurred the route between Italy Tunisia and Italy is relatively short it's about 99 miles uh a lot of the people that died in The Crossing DED from a much longer route which is like the one that goes from the Eastern of Libya towards Italy just just mention for example the the pilos Shipwreck last June where hundreds of people died in the space between
Greece and Italy so it's a relatively safer route the one that Tunisia from Tunisia to Italy partly and this is where they become very interesting is why we seen this shift towards Tunisia in the last 12 months one of the reason is that because a lot of the resources of the European Union in the last year or so have gone towards Libya and to work with the Coastal Guard Libya so they've moved the route uh more West towards Tunisia where basically they found their Crossing relatively easier okay really interesting to get your thoughts Professor Nando
seona thank you
