Milan seeks help for managing migrants

ROME/MILAN: Milan city officials are appealing for help in managing the huge number of migrants arriving from southern Italy after rescue at sea as rising numbers are unable to find beds and are sleeping in the train station.
The city’s top welfare official is appealing to station officials to provide space for new arrivals to receive help away from the main arrivals hall and for health officials to establish a permanent presence.
Hundreds of migrants camped on streets near Rome’s Tiburtina train station and gathered in Milan’s main terminal on Thursday, making a brief stop on their journey to northern Europe. At Tiburtina, migrants from Syria, Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia were among those resting in the shade under olive and fig trees. Children played in the supermarket nearby, and dozens napped on cardboard under an overpass.
Italy is struggling to handle the summertime surge in migrants, with thousands rescued at sea each week and more than 50,000 so far this year. Almost 2,000 have drowned.
Some northern Italian regions have refused to take in more migrants sent from crowded official reception centers down south, and now another crisis is brewing as local authorities struggle to deal with thousands heading north under their own steam.
“People say Italy is not good for migrants, so we want to leave,” said Abdi Mohammed Adem, a 19-year-old Somali rescued 15 days ago by the Italian navy. His goal is to reach Germany or Britain, he said.
To send him to Europe, Adem’s family sold its home and paid people smugglers $7,000, he said. But now he does not have enough cash to buy a ticket to go north.
“My family doesn’t have any more money to give me,” he said.
The European Union has tripled funding for rescue missions in the Mediterranean after a shipwreck killed some 800 migrants in April, but it is still trying to find a way to cope with those who arrive, and to relieve the burden on southern countries like Italy and Greece.