Skip to main content
Rotation 27 - Disembarkation

In Italy, we are working to support migrants and people on the move in several areas, in collaboration with local health authorities. We offer medical and psychological care to migrants and support local organisations who supply them with essential items.

Our activities in 2023 in Italy

Data and information from the International Activity Report 2023.

MSF in Italy in 2023 In Italy, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) provides medical and psychological care to migrants, who are often traumatised after their perilous journeys across the Mediterranean Sea and face further challenges as they travel north.
Italy IAR map 2023

Almost 160,000 people arrived in Italy in 2023 after crossing the Mediterranean Sea by boat, according to the Italian Ministry of the Interior. While this number is significantly higher compared to previous years, so too is the number of deaths: 2023 was one of the deadliest years on record, with an estimated 2,526 people losing their lives as they attempted to reach European shores.* 

Our teams in Italy continue to work at the northern and southern borders, offering medical and psychological care to migrants and supporting local organisations who supply them with essential items, such as winter shoes, inflatable hospital tents, and heaters.

In Calabria, our team helped local authorities to provide general healthcare for migrants and asylum seekers upon disembarkation at Roccella Ionica, one of the primary landing places in Italy.

Once again, there were multiple shipwrecks off the Italian coast during the year. In response, we sent a mobile team to six locations in Sicily and Calabria, where they conducted eight psychological first-aid interventions to assist survivors and families of the victims.

In northern Italy, our mobile team provided medical consultations, referrals and healthcare orientation to hundreds of people waiting to cross into France, most of whom were living in precarious conditions in unofficial settlements in the city of Ventimiglia after being pushed back from the border.

In Palermo, we maintained our support to the university hospital, delivering comprehensive care for migrants who had experienced torture and intentional violence in Libya and during their journeys. The project has an interdisciplinary approach, offering medical, psychological, social and legal assistance to patients.

MSF scaled up support to migrants by opening two new helpdesks in Rome and Naples. Like the ones already running in Palermo, Turin and Udine, they serve to guide and support migrants, asylum seekers and marginalised people to access medical services.
 

*https://missingmigrants.iom.int/region/mediterranean?region_incident=All&route=3861&year%5B%5D=11681&month=All&incident_date%5Bmin%5D=&incident_date%5Bmax%5D=

 

In 2023
 
Malnutrition emergency: mobile clinic in Ranobe
Italy

Over 60 people killed in Crotone shipwreck

Press Release 28 Feb 2023
 
SAR activities June 2017
Mediterranean migration

MSF statement on being summoned to preliminary hearing in Trapani court

Statement 17 May 2022
 
msf activities in Lampedusa
Mediterranean migration

Seven people dead and 10 missing in shipwreck off Italian island

Press Release 2 Jul 2021
 
Border between Italy and France
Italy

Abandoned at the borders: stories of people on the move during winter

Voices from the Field 28 Jan 2021
 
Rescue Jan 15th & 16th
Italy

“The survivors share the memory of the big wave that threw them into the water”

Voices from the Field 29 Oct 2020
 
MSF intervention in care homes
Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic

Out of view, but not out of mind: MSF's response to COVID-19 in care homes

Project Update 24 Apr 2020