Italian authorities on Friday assigned a safe port to a ship belonging to the German NGO SOS Humanity so that the 179 migrants on board, rescued in the Mediterranean Sea, can receive medical care.
«It will only be able to stay in our territorial waters for the time necessary for us to see if there are any health or other emergencies on board,» Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi explained at a press conference, as reported by the AdnKronos news agency.
The ship, called Humanity 1, which has a German flag, is already heading towards the Sicilian port of Catania. «We have adopted an inter-ministerial decree in accordance with article 1, paragraph 2, of decree law 130 of 2020,» he said.
The head of the Interior has also reported that another smaller boat, with 94 people on board, is heading towards Syracuse. «We were informed that there was an attempt of revolt on board, with precarious navigation conditions, so it is heading towards Syracuse», he has explained.
These statements come after Piantedosi himself expressed his refusal to allow the entry of migrants rescued by ships of various NGOs in the Mediterranean and asked that it is precisely the countries of origin of these ships that take in migrants.
The hardening of migration policies by Italy’s new government, headed by the far-right Giorgia Meloni, has led to some 1,000 migrants waiting to disembark in a safe port. Rome has appealed to the responsibility of the countries to which the boats legally belong.
The uncertainty of the last few days led SOS Mediterranée to ask France, Spain and Greece for help, so that one of these countries would respond, as 234 migrants rescued in the Mediterranean on board the rescue ship ‘Ocean Viking’ are still waiting for safe harbor.
«Supplies are running low,» warned the organization, which had previously contacted Italy and Malta without success. «Strong winds and high waves are expected later this week,» the NGO said in another statement.
Another vessel, the ‘Geo Barents’, of Doctors Without Borders, is calling for safe harbor «immediately» for the 572 migrants rescued in the Mediterranean. «Humanitarian organizations are working at sea because there is no effective search and rescue system established by Europe,» explained a worker from the ship, Anabel Montes.
Since the beginning of 2022, some 1,700 people have disappeared in the Mediterranean, 1,287 of them in the central area, which is already the most dangerous migratory route in the world, according to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Italian government data indicate that almost 86,000 people arrived by sea in Italy between January and November 2022, half of whom are from Tunisia, Egypt and Bangladesh. In the same period of 2021, the figure was around 53,000, while in 2020 it was 28,300.
