Migrants: Italy cannot be left alone says Metsola

(see related) (ANSA) - ROME, SEP 27 - European Parliament President Roberta Metsola has said it is the duty of the EU and its member States to help Italy cope with the pressure it is under due to a surge in the number of migrant boats arriving at the island of Lampedusa from North Africa.
    "A country that finds itself faced with the massive arrival of migrant flows, like that at Lampedusa, an island of 6,000 citizens which suddenly receives 1,700 people one day, 3,000 another, cannot be left alone," Metsola told a pool of agencies at the European Newsroom.
    "And it cannot feel left alone;" she added.
    The Italian interior ministry said Monday that 133,005 people have arrived in Italy on migrant boats so far this year, almost double the 69,806 that landed in the equivalent period last year.
    Metsola said the "internal and external dimension of immigration" should not be separated, stressing the need to be "coherent in the way we deal with neighbour countries".
    The internal dimension regards the reception of migrants once they are in the EU and the external one concerns efforts to try to stop the migrant flows in the first place, including via cooperation agreements with third countries like the Memorandum of Understanding recently signed with Tunisia.
    Metsola also expressed optimism that a breakthrough to end the deadlock regarding the New Pact on Migration and Asylum of the EU could come this week or next. (ANSA).