ROME, Nov 8 (Reuters) – Migrants aboard one of four lifeboats that Italy has refused in its ports were finally allowed to disembark by Italian authorities on Tuesday after spending a week at sea, a announced the German NGO Mission Lifeline.
The Rise Above docked shortly after dawn in the port of Reggio Calabria, in southern Italy, facing Sicily, and the 89 people on board, rescued in the Mediterranean, were allowed to reach land. closed.
“We are relieved that the survivors are finally safe,” said the charity Mission Lifeline, denouncing the “undignified political game” that had kept them at sea.
The new government led by far-right leader Giorgia Meloni quickly adopted a tough policy against migrant boats, urging aid organizations that regularly criss-cross the Mediterranean to disembark rescued people in other countries.
After initially refusing access to its ports to four boats, Italy allowed two of them to disembark in Sicily last weekend but only the most fragile people, mainly women and children, were allowed to disembark, leaving about 250 migrants on board.
The captains of the two boats, one chartered by the NGO SOS Humanité and the other by Doctors Without Borders, refused to return to sea with the remaining migrants and are challenging the Italian decision in court.
A third boat, the Ocean Viking, chartered by SOS Méditerranée, remains off Sicily with some 234 migrants on board. The latter were fished out off Libya 17 days ago and have repeatedly requested access to an Italian port.
UN migration and refugee agencies on Monday urged Italy to let all migrants disembark, adding that all “concerned countries” should then take responsibility for new arrivals.
Italy has seen a surge in migrant arrivals this year, with around 88,000 people disembarked so far in 2022 compared to 55,000 last year, according to official figures. (Report Angelo Amante and Crispian Balmer, French version Laetitia Volga, edited by Bertrand Boucey)