ROME (Reuters) – The humanitarian boat Ocean Viking, which has 234 migrants on board, is heading for the French coast, the charity SOS Méditerranée said on Tuesday after the Italian authorities failed to respond to its multiple requests for assistance.
The new government of Giorgia Meloni also authorized Tuesday two other humanitarian ships to disembark all their passengers. A last boat remained stranded in Sicily with 35 migrants on board.
Faced with “Italy’s silence and the exceptional nature of the situation”, the Ocean Viking sent a request for a place of safety to the French rescue coordination center, the organization said in a press release.
“The situation on board the Ocean Viking has reached a critical level. We are now facing very serious consequences, including risks of loss of life (…) (after) more than two weeks of blockage in sea,” said Sophie Beau, the general manager of SOS Méditerranée, which has chartered the Ocean Viking since 2019.
The NGO specifies in its press release that the Ocean Viking, which has been sailing for the past few days off Sicily, should arrive Thursday in international waters near Corsica.
The government has not officially reacted. A source at the Interior Ministry quoted by BFM TV described the behavior of the Italian authorities as “unacceptable” and “contrary to the law of the sea and the spirit of European solidarity”.
Corsica executive council president Gilles Simeoni said Corsica was “ready, if necessary, to temporarily host the #OceanViking in one of its ports”.
After spending a week at sea, the 89 migrants aboard the Rise Above of the German NGO Mission Lifeline were meanwhile authorized to disembark by the Italian authorities in the port of Reggio Calabria after having suffered an initial refusal.
“We are relieved that those rescued are finally safe,” Mission Lifeline said in a statement, condemning the “unworthy political games” that held the ship at sea for a week.
Two other boats, the Geo Barents chartered by Médecins sans frontières (MSF), and the Humanity 1 managed by the German NGO SOS Humanity, were authorized to dock this weekend in Sicily and disembark their most vulnerable passengers, women and children mainly.
Some 250 migrants have since remained stranded, but the Geo Barents was authorized on Tuesday to drop all of its passengers ashore. Thirty-five migrants were still stranded late Tuesday afternoon aboard the ship Humanity 1. According to the NGO SOS Humanity, many of them have been on hunger strike for two days.
(Angelo Amante, written by Alvise Armellini, French version Laetitia Volga, edited by Sophie Louet and Jean-Stéphane Brosse)