You're listening to a download from the BBC, this is from our own correspondent.

You can hear the version of the program we make for the BBC World Service by visiting our site

at BBC online.

But here's the latest edition broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and introduced by Kate Adi.

In recent weeks our screens and airwaves have been full of reports from across Europe about migrants, refugees, asylum seekers. Arriving by sea and by land

across the Mediterranean or through the Balkans, hundreds of thousands of people are

on the move, seeking safety or opportunity in the European Union.

It's not a new story and if it is today a crisis, it's been a slow burning one.

For example, many of the stories about the jungle in Calais

could have been aired in much the same form 10 years ago. The statistics and the deaths may have

risen, but the dilemmas have remained the same.

Crowds of people were already arriving in Italy last summer when Prime Minister Mateo Renzi

called on EU states and the UN to help deal with the flow.

Italians had been shocked by scores of drownings near the country's shores as overloaded

an unsee-worthy boats with dozens, sometimes hundreds of migrants sank.

The southern islands of Sicily and its tiny cousin, Lamped Dusa, were particularly affected.

They're the nearest land to the Libyan coast

where many migrants began their voyage after an already grueling trek through North Africa.

Some had even survived an odyssey right across the Sahara Desert, only to fall at the final obstacle.

Alan Johnston was following that story in July last year and encountered the brutal economics

of people trafficking.

The first images were tranquil enough.

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