The NGO workers who are tasked with getting the people off these rickety boats in the middle of the sea have terrible stories to tell. When a boat is spotted at any time of the day or night and the workers are not on an official vessel, they have an hour or two at most to get down to the harbour. One worker says that when the migrants board the naval vessel at sea, or the harbour on land, they are told ‘You’re in Italy!’ Then the workers reassure them that they are safe. Again, apart from the Eritreans most are very happy and smile. In the countries they come from, people are suspicious of officials and especially of police, so for third parties to reassure the migrants that here in Europe the police and officials will actually work for them is a very important reassurance. One NGO worker relates that the first thing she says to the migrants when they get onto the naval vessel in the middle of the sea or into the dock at Lampedusa is simply, ‘Welcome to Europe.’

After what the migrants have been through even before the treacherous crossing from North Africa, it is hardly surprising that many of them arrive at Lampedusa exhausted and traumatised. Some will have lost a family member on the journey. In 2015 a big Nigerian man sat on the harbour ground weeping like a child and hitting it with his hand. The boat he had come in on had gone down and though he had saved one of his children, his wife and another of his sons had drowned in front of him.

Yet still they come, knowing the risks, because for all the stories of sinking boats and deaths on board, most of those who set out will stay afloat, reach Italian waters and once there become European citizens. Whether they are fleeing political, religious or sectarian persecution, or whether they are after a better life in the developed world, all will claim asylum. Many will have legitimate claims and Italy has a duty to give these people asylum: under the Geneva Conventions and the EU Dublin Treaty the first country into which a migrant enters and claims asylum is the country that must assess the claim and offer protection. But the bitter truth is that there is almost no way to find out who is who, or what is true. If the flow of applicants was not at the levels it has been for years then the finger-printing, interviews and everything else that follows could be carefully assessed. Backstories could be cross-checked and followed up on. But with the arrivals coming at this speed and in these numbers there was never any chance of this.