ZCZC
BFF-10
ITALY-LIBYA-GERMANY-MALTA-MIGRATION
Migrant rescue sailboat defies Salvini, docks in Italy
ROME, July 7, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – A charity rescue vessel on Saturday brought
41 shipwrecked migrants into port in Lampedusa, the second boat to defy far-
right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini’s bid to close Italian ports to them.
Mediterranea’s Italian-flagged Alex was met by a strong police presence on
the quayside but people were not allowed to disembark after spending two days
with the rescued migrants and asylum seekers on the sailboat.
“I do not authorise any landing for those who couldn’t care less about
Italian laws and help the people smugglers,” populist deputy prime minister
Salvini tweeted as night fell.
Salvini last month issued a decree that would bring fines of up to 50,000
euros ($57,000) for the captain, owner and operator of a vessel “entering
Italian territorial waters without authorisation”.
After the Alex reached port, he said that he would raise the maximum fine
to one million euros.
Mediterranea tweeted back a request to disembark those rescued, saying it
had sailed to “the only possible safe port for landing”, citing “intolerable
hygiene conditions aboard”.
“Shipwrecks and crew are exhausted… people rescued need to be cared
for… this is a surreal situation and it is an unnecessary cruelty to
prolong the wait.”
Authorities on Lampedusa last week seized another rescue ship belonging to
German aid group Sea-Watch after it forced its way into port with dozens of
rescued migrants on board and arrested its captain, Carola Rackete.
An Italian judge this week ordered her freed as she had been acting to save
lives, a decision which sparked Salvini’s ire but may have encouraged the
Alex crew.
Two other investigations, on charges of helping people smugglers and
resisting the authorities are still under way after Rackete forced her way
past Italian customs vessels.
A third rescue ship, German charity Sea-Eye’s vessel Alan Kurdi, carrying
65 shipwrecked migrants rescued off Libya had also arrived in international
waters off Lampedusa.
The group said late Saturday that it was heading for Malta.
– ‘European irresponsibility’ –
In Germany, more than 30,000 people demonstrated in cities around the
country in solidarity with Rackete, including 8,000 in Berlin and 4,000 in
Hamburg.
“The irresponsibility of European countries obliged me to do what I did,”
Rackete said in a message to demonstrators, many of whom brandished life
vests.
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer wrote a letter to Salvini asking
him to rethink his policy, sources close to the German government said.
“We cannot be responsible for boats with people rescued from shipwrecks on
board spending weeks on the Mediterranean because they can’t find a port,”
Seehofer wrote.
Salvini accuses NGO rescue vessels of helping smugglers and had insisted
the Alex sail for the Maltese capital Valetta after 13 “vulnerable” people
were on Friday taken to Lampedusa, leaving 41 on board.
Malta also told the Alex to go to Valletta to disembark the migrants, but
Mediterranea said the journey would be too arduous and the boat would likely
be seized if it did.
Photographs showed dozens of migrants and asylum seekers seeking shelter
from the sun under survival blankets on the narrow deck of the 18-metre (59-
foot) sailboat.
– ‘Impossible’ journey –
“In these conditions it is impossible to face 15 hours of sailing,”
Mediterranea’s Alessandra Sciurba said on Twitter.
Mediterranea consists mainly of left-wing activists, the avowed enemy of
Salvini, who has seen his popularity and that of his Lega party rise thanks
to his tough stance against migrant rescue ships.
A poll published in Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper on Saturday said
59 percent of Italians approved of Salvini’s closing ports NGO vessels.
On Wednesday, four people were rescued after a makeshift vessel carrying 86
people across the Mediterranean from Libya sank off the Tunisian coast. All
the others are missing or dead.
The Italian judge in last week’s Sea-Watch case ruled that neither Libya
nor Tunisia were safe countries for migrants.
Libya, which has been wracked by chaos since the 2011 uprising that killed
veteran dictator Moamer Kadhafi, has long been a major transit route for
migrants, especially from sub-Saharan Africa, desperate to reach Europe.
On Tuesday night, 53 migrants were killed in an air strike on their
detention centre in a Tripoli suburb.
BSS/AFP/GMR/0948 hrs