Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said on Wednesday during a meeting with 51 African migrants that Italy remains "a country of reception, generosity and solidarity."
"This is the proof that Italy will remain a welcoming, generous and solidarity country, after I have been given the duty to re-apply some rules and establish order and calm in a phenomenon that has escaped us in recent years," said Salveni, who arrived in office with a promise to stop the arrival of migrants.
"The only way available for women and children facing difficulties is the plane, not the rubber boats, because the boats are driven by criminals who buy weapons against humans.
The Italian minister attended the runway of the Pratica de Mari military airport near Rome to receive the 51 refugees from Niger after the United Nations evacuated them from Libya, most of them families or women with children