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Italy interior minister heads to Libya amid migrant crisis
ROME, June 25, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Italy’s far-right Interior Minister Matteo
Salvini left Monday for talks in Libya on the migrant crisis, he said on
Twitter.
“Mission Libya, we’ve left!”, he said, posting a selfie on board a military
plane to Libya.
Italy, on the frontline of Europe’s migrant crisis, has turned away rescue
vessels with its new populist government demanding greater solidarity from
reluctant fellow EU states.
Salvini, who will be the first member of the new government to visit Libya,
on Sunday bluntly told foreign charities to stop rescuing migrants off the
North African coast, where one group said 1,000 people were on boats in
distress.
“Let the Libyan authorities do their work of rescue, recovery and return
(of migrants) to their country, as they have been doing for some time,
without the ships of the voracious NGOs disturbing them or causing trouble,”
he said.
“Italian ports are and will be closed to those who aid human traffickers,”
he said.
In an interview published Monday with the newspaper La Repubblica, Libya’s
deputy premier Ahmed Maiteeq said he hoped to work with the Italian
government on the issue.
“The cooperation between Italy and Libya is crucial,” he said, adding that
the arrival of migrants was also “a major problem” for his country.
“Traffickers who bring migrants to Italy are dangerous criminal groups for
us, who prevent Libya from taking a step toward a difficult normalisation.”
“All of Europe must think of structural measures to take in African
countries to stop migrants.”
Hundreds of people fleeing conflict and persecution at home are caught in
the midst of a worsening row over how to deal with the influx of migrants
against a backdrop of mass drownings in the Mediterranean in recent years.
One boat, the Lifeline, remained in limbo on Sunday with 239 Africans
aboard, including pregnant women and children. Malta and Italy refused to
take it in after the Aquarius suffered a similar fate until it was allowed to
dock in Spain.
On Sunday, 16 of the EU’s 28 leaders held emergency talks in Brussels to
find a way forward despite a longstanding deadlock over who should take in
migrants and refugees who land in Italy and other European countries.
BSS/AFP/MR/ 1345 hrs