Italy has allowed two groups of migrants to disembark in Italy despite the country’s “closed ports” policy after European countries agreed to take in some of them and officials impounded a charity ship that brought others.
Thirty migrants rescued from a rubber boat off the coast of Libya by the aid group Mediterranea landed at the Italian port of Lampedusa on Friday.
Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini had originally said “the ports will remain closed,” to the Italian aid group’s ship the Mare Jonio, but reversed that decision when authorities said they would impound the boat.
“The last voyage for the boat … Mare Jonio. Blocked and seized. Bye bye,” Salvini wrote on Twitter.
Ultimo viaggio per la nave dei centri sociali #MareJonio: bloccata e sequestrata. Ciao ciao. pic.twitter.com/qRTgS2NjKO
— Matteo Salvini (@matteosalvinimi) May 10, 2019
The boat’s head of mission, Beppe Caccia, said police had boarded the Mare Jonio, but had not told him they were planning to detain it. He denied any wrongdoing and shrugged off the threat of legal action.
“Seizure is an act to stop us. But it’s important to us that the people are safe,” the group tweeted.
At least 50 migrants drowned on Friday when their boat sank in international waters off the Tunisian coast, said the UN migration agency.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said sixteen people survived on Friday, making it one of the deadliest incidents involving migrants trying to reach Europe by sea this year.
Navy rescue
Thirty six migrants rescued by the Italian navy in the Mediterranean in a separate mission were allowed to land in Sicily on Friday under an European Union deal that means many will be transferred to other countries in the region, the government said.
“I thank France, Malta, Luxembourg and Germany for the solicitude with which, within a few hours, they said they were ready to welcome” some of them, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said in a statement on Friday.
The military boat which plucked them from a stricken vessel on Thursday was not on a dedicated humanitarian mission. EU-wide military search-and-rescue patrols ended in March after Italy’s government repeatedly refused to let migrants or refugees disembark.
Germany had previously withdrawn from the mission, saying Italy’s position was undermining the whole project.
“All persons rescued from the Mediterranean should be allowed to disembark in a safe port. This is just the latest in Salvini’s efforts to undermine – and indeed criminalise – humanitarian efforts to save lives,” Judith Sunderland, associate Europe director of Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera, referring to the initial refusal to allow the aid ship to land.
Rome has taken increasingly hardline anti-immigration stances. Salvini signed an order last month banning charity vessels from rescuing people at sea.
The Mare Jonio was briefly impounded in March in Lampedusa after bringing dozens of migrants ashore, but released after a week.
Operation Sophia, the EU mission ostensibly aimed at targeting human trafficking networks, but which had the politically convenient side-effect of reducing immigration, largely collapsed at the end of March with a suspension of sea patrols.
It’s mandate runs until the end of September and will continue by “strengthening surveillance by air assets as well as reinforcing support to the Libyan Coastguard and Navy,” a European Council statement said.
After Italy closed its waters to rescue boats, European nations failed to reach agreement on which countries should take most of those saved at sea. Member states are continuing to work on “a solution for disembarkation,” the statement said.
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
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