(ANSA) - ROME, 27 LUG - Around 100 people on Monday ran away from a civil protection department migrant centre at the Sicilian port of Porto Empedocle.
The tensile-structure centre was badly overcrowded as it was hosting around 520 asylum seekers while, in theory, its maximum capacity is 100.
State and Carabinieri police have launched a search for the runaway migrants and are focusing their efforts on the road to Agrigento.
Carabinieri officers managed to stop some people before they could get away.
Earlier on Monday police said Monday that 125 of the 184 people who ran away from the Pian del Lago migrant centre in another Sicilian city, Caltanissetta, on Sunday have been tracked down.
The police said all of them will be put into quarantine and they are continuing the search for the others.
"I am going to write to (Interior Minister Luciana) Lamorgese reiterating that the Caltanissetta facility cannot hold these people because it is not suitable," said Mayor Roberto Gambino.
The situation is also difficult on the island of Lampedusa after 114 rescued migrants arrived there overnight. The island's migrant centre is currently accommodating 650 people.. (ANSA).
Some 100 run away from Porto Empedocle migrant centre
Police trying to round up runaway asylum seekers