The Italian islanders have turfed out the mayor who offered a haven to migrants, and now they want other Europeans to share the burden

Anyone looking for an insight into the growing disillusionment of ordinary Italians as their country is left to deal alone with a summer surge of migrants on its southern shores should contemplate the fate of Giusi Nicolini, the former mayor of Lampedusa.

Earlier this year Nicolini won Unesco’s Félix Houphouët-Boigny peace prize for the “great humanity and constant commitment” with which she has managed a migration crisis that began in earnest during the summer of 2011, as the Arab spring turned north African societies upside down.

A politician from the centre-left Democratic party, Nicolini also won the Olof Palme prize in 2016 and was among the Italians celebrated at a dinner with former US president Barack Obama at the White House in October.

But as she travelled the world and courted the media, regularly appearing on Italian TV and portraying the tiny island of around 6,000 people as a safe haven for migrants, discontent simmered back on Lampedusa, closer to Tunisia than mainland Italy, where she held office. Islanders made their feelings known last month when Nicolini was resoundingly ousted from her post, coming third in municipal elections with just 908 votes.

“It wasn’t a surprise to us that she lost,” said Salvatore Martello, a hotel owner and fisherman who won the election running independently from Italy’s main parties. “In the years she was mayor, she curated an image abroad of the island and the migrant situation, forgetting its people.”

Among many Italians, patience is running out as repeated calls for greater assistance from the rest of Europe in dealing with the crisis are ignored. France and Austria are deploying draconian means to ensure migrants remain on Italian soil in overpopulated reception centres.

Recently Italy’s interior minister, Marco Minniti, called on non-Italian European ports to open up to the migrant rescue ships that assist some of the thousands of migrants arriving on Italy’s southern shores each week.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lampedusa’s former mayor Giusi Nicolini collecting an award in Poland. Photograph: Jacek Bednarczyk/EPA

Martello, a leftwinger who said during his campaign that he “cannot stand seeing migrants swarming everywhere”, became mayor of Lampedusa a week or so before figures revealed the number of those risking their lives by attempting to cross the deadly stretch of the Mediterranean between Libya and Europe had increased by 70% within the first six months of this year. An estimated 2,000 people had drowned along the way. But does Nicolini’s defeat truly mean that islanders, many of whom have rallied to offer their homes, food and clothing to migrants, have now hardened their hearts?

Martello has been elected mayor before, the first time for a nine-year term beginning in 1993, two years after three Tunisians were found hiding in Hotel Medusa, marking the start of Lampedusa’s transformation as a stepping-stone for migrants. As a fisherman, Martello was among those who helped save people from rickety wooden boats during that period. Some of those boats are on display around the island.

He told the Observer that the island would continue to be welcoming, but that his priorities must focus on improving the lives of local people.

“We need to distinguish between migration policy and the management of both Lampedusa and [the neighbouring isle] of Linosa,” he said. “We have some serious problems, many of which are the same problems that were there when I was mayor for the first time.”

The issues that need to be addressed include improving health services – anyone in critical need of care must fly to Sicily. There is also no maternity facility at the local hospital, with pregnant women forced to travel to Sicily a month before their due date. Other problems include a lack of drinkable water, a sketchy waste management system and a shortage of jobs for young people.

During Nicolini’s time as mayor, solidarity visits by the actress Angelina Jolie in 2011, and by Pope Francis a few months after he became pontiff in 2013, highlighted the island’s challenges. Then came the tragedy of October of that year, when 350 people perished not far from the famed “Rabbit Beach”, which regularly ranks among the world’s best in travel surveys.

Photographs of those who arrived safely, from Tunisia, Syria and elsewhere, still adorn the walls of the mayoral office. Leaflets advertising a recent immigration seminar hosted on the island are scattered across a table, while a poster for the Oscar-nominated Fuocoammare (Fire At Sea), a documentary that contrasts the migrant crisis with everyday life on the island, stands close to the building’s entrance. But the mood has undoubtedly changed.

“The do-gooders talk about helping migrants – that is until they are housed next door to them,” said Martello.

Around 200 people are currently staying at the refugee shelter, a building tucked away in the centre of the island that has often been criticised for its appalling living conditions. Migrants set fire to it in May in protest. Technically, they are not allowed to leave the centre, but have been able to crawl out through a hole in a fence to wander the island.

Martello said he has no plans to stop that, if rules are respected. “And the same applies to everyone else,” he added.

Migrants remain in the centre for up to a month before being moved elsewhere in Italy. The situation does not impact on islanders’ lives as much as it did in the past, but they still wanted change in their leadership.

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“People didn’t like Nicolini because she put herself first,” said Vincenzo Esposito, a fisherman for 50 years. “Yes, it was right to help migrants, but millions have been spent on that and not on our basic needs – if you want to have a tooth out, you have to fly to Palermo. Even if you just want to leave for a holiday, there are hardly any flights.”

Esposito also helped migrants when they first started to arrive in the 1990s, offering food, cigarettes and money – whatever was on board his fishing boat. He said the shipwreck of October 2013 had also pierced the hearts of islanders.

But amid a feeling of abandonment, those hearts became weary. A local historian, who asked to remain anonymous, put it more bluntly. “Politicians and the media presented an image that was contrary to the reality,” he said. “Most people here don’t care about migrants.” He pointed to the example of one resident, who recently pressed for the bench opposite his home to be removed because migrants congregated around it.

“We talk about being ‘welcoming’ in Europe but the truth is that people aren’t being welcomed anywhere, they’re being pushed into whatever fate lies ahead, usually prostitution or drug dealing.”

Still, in recent years Lampedusa has become a beacon of hope for those fighting for open-door policies, particularly following the endorsement of Unesco.

But the island has never been a place of unlimited generosity, said Daniela DeBono, a research fellow for the global governance programme at the European University Institute.

“That was a big myth,” she said, adding that she didn’t think the recent election would change much.

“Lampedusans are just like everyone else – you get the racists, the super-humanitarians and those in between who are just trying to make sense of the situation.”