(AFP) Italian far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini on Wednesday met dozens of African migrants, recently evacuated from Libya by the UN, and sought to reassure them that Italy is “a welcoming, generous and supportive country.”
Salvini, who has been at the forefront of the country’s hardline approach to immigration, met the group of 51 migrants, mostly families or women with children, on the tarmac at a military airport near Rome.
“For women and children in difficulty, the only way to arrive is by plane, not by inflatable dinghy, because the dinghies are operated by criminals who in exchange for trafficking in human beings, buy weapons,” he said.
“This is a demonstration that Italy is a welcoming, generous and supportive country, where I have been entrusted with the duty of bringing back some rules and order.”
