By mid-2024, more than 122.6 million people worldwide had been forcibly displaced by war, violence and persecution. This figure is expected to exceed 130 million by the end of the year. More than 68 million remained internally displaced, while 69% fled to neighbouring countries – three out of four to low- and middle-income countries. A small proportion embarked on long and dangerous journeys to Europe. Total irregular arrivals from 2023 to the first nine months of 2024 were just over 520,000, with more than 1.5 million asylum applications filed in the same period (+20%). However, a reverse trend was observed in 2024 with 449 000 asylum applications, a decrease of 5%. For years, the main countries of departure for people seeking refuge in the EU were Syria and Afghanistan. Less than 414,000 non-EU nationals were living in Italy with a residence permit for reasons of protection and asylum on 1 January 2024, or 0.7 percent of the total population. Italy’s migrant reception centres hosted an estimated 138,000 asylum seekers, refugees and migrants. In the first eight months of 2024, 109,000 applications were submitted seeking international protection of some kind: up 32 per cent compared to the previous year. However, the number of refugees and migrants arriving in Italy via the Mediterranean Sea fell sharply in 2024, with 61% less than in 2023, or 54,000 arrivals by sea. These are some of the figures published by the Fondazione Migrantes (Tau 2024, p. 424), edited by Mariacristina Molfetta and Chiara Marchetti, in its eighth report on the “Right to Asylum”.
Right to asylum “facing increasing difficulties.” The text denounces that, despite ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, Ukraine, and the impact of climate change, “the right to asylum faces increasing challenges” in the European Union and in Italy. “Responses to the root causes of forced displacement are not as immediate as they should be, with not enough public authorities and institutions seriously and responsibly pursuing the goals of peace and justice, while a mad arms race continues,” reads the report, which describes the “new” European Pact on Migration and Asylum as “a watered-down compromise.”
In the enlarged EU, a 39% drop in the number of irregular border crossings was observed in 2024, with landings in the Canary Islands and other border crossings on the rise. In the first eight months of 2024, the “enlarged” European Union recorded a significant decrease in “irregular” arrivals of refugees and migrants at its external borders: 39% compared to the same period in 2023. In contrast, increases were registered in the number of landings in the Canary Islands via the West African routes (up by 123%), in the Eastern Mediterranean (up by 39%) and, although on a much smaller scale in absolute terms, at the Eastern land borders.
Landings in Italy: around 54 000 in 2024 (-61%). In 2024, after four years of increases, the number of refugees and migrants arriving in Italy by crossing the Mediterranean fell to 54,000 landings between January and mid-October – 61% less than in the same period in 2023. Bangladeshi and Syrian arrivals (close to 10,800 and 10,000 respectively) have been the most numerous so far in 2024, followed by Tunisia. Libya has returned to top the list of departure countries, with almost 20,000 arrivals at the end of July 2024, compared to 12,000 from Tunisia.
More migrants sent back to Libya. The number of migrants and refugees intercepted by Libya’s so-called “Coast Guard” and deported back to an organised system of atrocities, harassment, cutthroats and violence is increasing: in the period January-August 2024, 16,220 were disembarked at sea, compared to 17,190 in all of 2023.
Deaths at sea: 1,342 since the beginning of the year, 1 in 40 landings. The (lowest) estimate of the number of deaths or disappearances in the Mediterranean at the end of August 2024 was 1,342, including 1,053 in the central Mediterranean. Today, 1 in 40 migrants arriving by sea is at risk of dying on this route (1 in 63 arrivals in 2023). Between 2014 and September 2024, more than 68,000 migrants and refugees have died or disappeared along international migration routes. NGOs have rescued 6,200 people so far this year, a fifth of whom have landed in Italy.
Repatriations from Italy accounted for only 44% of migrants in pre-repatriation centres (CPR). In 2023, the ratio of repatriations from Italy to the total number of deportations to CPRs – pre-repatriation reception centres – stood at just 44% (2,987 repatriations out of 6,714 entries in CPRs), following a ten-year downward trend. Between 1 January and 27 October 2024, a total of 4,514 migrants were repatriated from Italy, 15% more than in 2023 and 34% more than in 2022.
Rejections: 62% of asylum applications, on the rise. In the first six months of 2024, the Territorial Asylum Commissions processed around 37,400 applications. They granted refugee status to around 3,000 asylum-seekers, subsidiary protection status to 5,000 and “complementary protection” status to 6,000 applicants (special protection and permission for medical treatment). However, they also rejected 23,400 applications, or 62% of all applications processed in Italy. This figure has increased in recent years.
Decrease in the number of unaccompanied minors: 20,039 in Italy (-11%). At the end of August 2024, there were 20,039 unaccompanied foreign minors (UFM) “present” in Italy: 17,608 male teenagers and young boys (88%) and 2,431 female teenagers and young girls (12%). The previous year – end of August 2023 – there were 22,599 minors: an 11% decrease in one year.
Of these, 3,525 left the facilities in the first half of 2024: most of them came from Tunisia, Guinea and Egypt, almost all of them male and almost three quarters of them aged 16 or over.
Victims of human trafficking: in 2024, Italy provided assistance to 1,737 victims of trafficking (up to September), 60% of whom were women, as well as 6% transgender individuals. In 2023, the number was 1,899. Between the beginning of the year and the end of July, the Ministry of the Interior issued 6,284 residence permits enabling access to medical care and social protection services for victims of trafficking, domestic violence, serious labour exploitation or natural disasters.
Humanitarian corridors: 7,831 arrivals in 10 years, including 6,807 to Italy. By July 2024, 1,525 immigrants reached Europe along safe pathways, 600 of them via humanitarian corridors and 863 via humanitarian evacuation. From February 2016 to September 2024, 7,831 people reached Europe safely, 6,807 of them in Italy, thanks to the commitment of various organisations and religious communities and to agreements signed in a number of countries.
