ROME, March 13 (Reuters) – The Italian government said on Monday that the Russian paramilitary group Wagner was behind an increase in the number of migrant boats trying to cross the central Mediterranean, as part of a strategy to Moscow seeking revenge against countries supporting Ukraine.
“I think it is now possible to affirm that the exponential increase in the migratory phenomenon departing from the African coasts is also part, in no small measure, of a clear strategy of hybrid warfare that the Wagner division is in the process of to implement, using its considerable weight in some African countries,” Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said in a statement.
Some 20,000 people have arrived in Italy since the start of the year, compared to 6,100 in the same period in 2022, according to Interior Ministry figures, and the immigration issue is mounting pressure on the government of right.
Reuters has contacted the Wagner Group for comment on Guido Crosetto’s allegation.
Guido Crosetto, a prominent member of Italian Council President Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing Brothers of Italy party, has called on NATO allies to help Italy deal with the surge in arrivals of immigrants.
“The Atlantic Alliance becomes stronger if the problems arising from collective choices are equally shared, but it runs the risk of cracking if the countries most exposed to reprisals of all kinds are left alone,” he said. .
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani made similar remarks during a visit to Israel, telling the ANSA news agency that it was worrying that many migrants came from areas ‘controlled by the Wagner Group’. .
(Report Angelo Amante, French version Augustin Turpin, edited by Kate Entringer)
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