The NGO SOS Méditerranée, whose ambulance ship Ocean Viking rescued 95 migrants off Libya on Wednesday, denounced on Friday January 27 the decision of the Italian authorities to disembark them “1500 kilometers away» of the rescue zone.
“The Italian authorities assigned the Ocean Viking to the port of Carrara in Italy for the disembarkation of the 95 survivors“, including 20 women and 38 minors, among whom 33 are unaccompanied, indicated the NGO based in Marseille.
Ensuring their health and safety
“Carrara is located 1,500 km from the area of operation, which involves a three-day navigation and exposes women, men and children to waves, rain, wind and cold.“, she insisted in an email, noting that”by law, the disembarkation of people rescued at sea must be organized as soon as possible to ensure their health and safety“.
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In a series of tweets on Thursday, the NGO Doctors Without Borders, whose ship Geo Barents picked up 237 migrants off the coast of Libya, also denounced the designation by the Italian authorities of a remote port, La Spezia, near Genoa. , to land them there.
NGOs against the Italian government
At the beginning of January, several international NGOs engaged in rescue operations for migrants in the Mediterranean had denounced the will of the far-right Italian government “to hinder assistance to persons in distress“by a decree obliging ships to surrender”without delayto an Italian port after each rescue.
They denounce in use the fact that these ports are very far from the rescue zones, imposing long delays, which reduces the assistance capacities, already hampered by the prohibition to chain several rescues in a row.
The government of Giorgia Meloni came to power in October promising to stop the arrival of migrants in Italy, which saw more than 105,000 in 2022 by sea, according to the Italian Ministry of the Interior.
Last figures
According to local media, migrants rescued and disembarked by NGOs represented in 2022 around 12% of the total, most being taken care of by the Italian navy or coast guard.
According to the latest figures from the Italian Interior Ministry, 4,459 migrants landed in Italy between January 1 and 26 this year, compared to 2,074 for the same period in 2022 and 872 still over the same period in 2021.
The central Mediterranean is the most dangerous migration route in the world, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The UN agency estimates that in 2022, 1,377 migrants disappeared there.
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