Catania , Sicily ( CNN ) We are at the beginning of a massive and mounting crisis with no solution in sight . Perhaps that 's incorrect . The migrant crisis that has suddenly drawn hundreds of journalists to Sicily has been brewing for years , but in the past 10 days , with as many as 1,600 deaths in the Mediterranean , suddenly minds are focused -- for now . Almost exactly four years ago , in Libya , I caught , perhaps , a glimpse of what was to come . It was late at night in the besieged city of Misrata . Hundreds of African migrants were caught between the Libyan civil war ( back then some optimistically called it a `` revolution '' ) and the deep blue sea . They had come to Misrata from Ghana , Nigeria and elsewhere , hoping to board rickety boats to cross the sea to Europe . They had been pinned down under sporadic shelling from government forces , but were n't welcome by the rebels who controlled the city . They appealed to us to help them escape . We could do nothing , but they may have eventually found their way out when the fighting subsided . The fall of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi 's regime , which we reporters covered so avidly , was followed by chaos , which we in the news media largely neglected , focused as we journalists were on the next catastrophe , the Syrian civil war . In that chaos , the business of human trafficking has boomed . And now that boom in human misery is coming in waves to the shores of Italy . The focus today is on those lost at sea . Aware of the tragedy underway , however , Italians are alarmed at the prospect that this year alone as many as a million migrants could arrive in Europe , according to one European Union official . That is certainly the case in the Sicilian port of Catania , where many migrants arrive . The city 's mayor , Enzo Bianco , insists city residents bear no ill will toward the migrants , but says Catania , and Sicily can not absorb the ever-growing numbers . The rest of Europe must help carry the burden . `` If something serious is n't done , '' he warns , `` dramas like these will be repeated . This problem will not be resolved by hiding our heads in the sand . '' Increasingly , some Italians are losing their patience . Two northern regions , Veneto and Valle d'Aosta , have declared they will no longer accept new migrants . The rightist Lega Nord has made opposition to new migrants a pillar of its party program . Others , however , insist Italy must keep its doors open . In Catania port , I spoke with Grazia Giurato , who had joined a small protest in solidarity with the migrants . `` Many years ago , our grandparents emigrated , '' she recalled . `` Let 's keep that in mind . '' Indeed , in tougher times , millions of impoverished Italians left their homeland to settle in the Americas and Australia . They , too , like the migrants from Africa and the Middle East , were fleeing grinding poverty and war . And they , too , experienced the kind of prejudice and resentment in lands their descendants now proudly call home . That 's the long view , perhaps . But now , today , Italians are grappling to deal with the consequences of an array of old and new ills , ranging from failing states and failing economies to endemic corruption , hopeless poverty , oppression and injustice that no one state or group of states can solve without a gargantuan , expensive and politically daunting effort . And while this crisis has been brewing for years , it is now truly upon us .
Hundreds of desperate migrants have died attempting to cross the Europe in recent says . And Italians are alarmed that this year as many as a million migrants could arrive in Mediterranean .