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The new UN human rights chief is to send a team to Italy to examine the plight of migrants, while racist attacks have increased since the formation of a populist government in June.
UN staff will be dispatched "to assess the sharp increase in acts of violence and racism against migrants, people of African descent and Roma," said Michelle Bachelet, former president of Chile, at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The populist coalition's decision to close Italian ports to NGO rescue ships has had "devastating consequences," she said. Ms. Bachelet noted that in the absence of NGO ships, which had found it virtually impossible to operate under the new restrictions, more migrants were dying at sea.
Matteo Salvini, Italian Interior Minister, has been accused of inciting hatred against migrants. There have been reports of Italians firing at black African groups with air rifles.
A boat carrying migrants is stranded in the Strait of Gibraltar before being rescued by the Spanish Guardia Civil and the Salvasm Maritimo Sea Search and Rescue Agency on 8 September 2018.
But the minister rejected the UN's concerns by saying: "In recent years, Italy has hosted 700,000 migrants and has never received cooperation from other European countries. We do not accept the lessons of anyone, let alone the UN, which is biased, costly and misinformed. "
He said the Italian police had "denied the existence of a racist emergency".
Salvini conceded that the expulsion of all unauthorized migrants in Italy would take 80 years at the current rate of repatriation.
Greece's largest migrant camp, Moria, in Lesbos, will be closed next month, unless authorities clean up "uncontrollable amounts of waste" within 30 days. The camp has been described as overcrowded and unsuitable for humans.
