BARI, Italy (AP) — This year has gotten off to a slow start for rescue ships that typically sail the Mediterranean searching for stranded migrants and refugees. The Ocean Viking’s crew has been seized for deviating from its designated course, as Italy targets charities operating such ships.
The seizures of the 69-metre (225-foot) vessel operated by European group SOS Mediterranee are the second in recent months as Italian authorities enforce a year-old Italian government decree regulating maritime rescue charities. This is the second time.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right-led government approved the decree as part of efforts to stem the flow of migrants and asylum seekers trying to reach Europe. Italian maritime authorities now regularly dispatch private rescue vessels to ports in north-central Italy, which are hundreds of miles and days away from where the troubled boat was found.
Authorities also prohibit aid organizations’ vessels from conducting multiple rescue operations without permission.
The government says the measures are aimed at reducing migration pressure on southern Italy and regulating maritime missions maintained by the Italian government, which encourage more migrants to attempt the dangerous crossing from North Africa. It states that it only encourages this.
To date, 13 or 14 rescue vessels operated by charity organizations have been seized for various violations. Aid groups deny their work is incentivized and say Italian procedures have grounded ships for several days, leaving vulnerable migrants at the whims of the Mediterranean. claims.
The SOS Mediterranean is accused of deviating from its designated route to the port of Bari, a city on Italy’s Adriatic coast, where its crew had been directed after rescuing 244 people at sea. The Ocean Viking veered off course on Dec. 27 to respond to a commercial aircraft report of a ship in distress about 15 nautical miles away.
After revised coordinates showed the boat was too far away and Italian authorities removed Ocean Viking from duty, it resumed its original course to Bari.
“We are accused of disobeying the orders of the Italian Coast Guard, but our only fault is that we were following the law of the sea,” said Alessandro Polo, senior rescue worker and SOS Mediterranean Italian activity representative. Stated.
After arriving in Bari on December 30 as originally scheduled, the crew were given a 20-day ship detention order and a 3,300 euro ($3,600) fine. The detention order expires on Friday, so SOS Mediterrane hopes to make a fresh start as soon as possible, weather permitting.
Mary Finn, another Ocean Viking rescue worker, said: “We know this is not effective in any way and is a tactic to try to stop us.” . “And it’s painful to feel like humanity isn’t on our side, or the authorities aren’t on our side, because when you’re doing this work, you feel like what we’re doing is the right thing. Because it is very clear.”
Sarah Kelanyi, migration policy coordinator for Meloni’s Italian Brothers party, agreed that saving lives is the priority. But she said the presence of vessels run by charities in the Mediterranean must be limited and strictly regulated.
Mr. Kelanyi argued that many organizations organizing humanitarian work in the Mediterranean have a stated political objective of changing the European Union’s migration policy.
“Essentially, they want to be political actors within the immigration dynamic,” she said in an interview. “Immigration is a national prerogative of the state, and private organizations cannot be allowed to influence immigration policy with their policies.”
Of the 260,000 people who crossed the Mediterranean from North Africa to reach Europe last year, more than 60% first arrived in Italy, according to United Nations and Italian statistics.
Meanwhile, more than 3,000 people have drowned at sea while attempting to cross in 2023, and more than 28,800 people overall have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean since 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration. It is estimated that
It is unclear how the Italian government’s restrictions on maritime rescue organizations have affected the number of migrants who reach Europe or who are lost at sea. Charity ships rescue only about 8% of asylum seekers arriving in Italy, down from a peak of 41% in 2017. The majority either landed on their own ships or were brought ashore by the Italian coast guard.
Meloni’s government has promised to curb immigration after taking office at the end of 2022. Instead, the number of cases in Italy has skyrocketed to more than 157,000 in 2023, compared to 105,000 the previous year. One day in September, more than 7,000 migrants arrived on Lampedusa.
Meloni pushed for a deal to keep people from leaving for Europe, and also created an African development plan aimed at giving people greater economic opportunity to avoid desperate departures.
Details of the plan, named after Enrico Mattei, the former head of Italian oil company ENI, which has strategic interests in several North African countries, have not been disclosed.
Beyond that, Meloni was in Tunisia in June when the head of the EU’s executive committee signed an agreement with the Tunisian government promising economic aid in exchange for help preventing departures.
Most recently, Meloni reached a bilateral agreement with Albania to establish two centers in the Balkan country to expedite asylum applications for migrants rescued by vessels of the Italian navy, coast guard and border police. I asked for something.
Albania’s Constitutional Court blocked the deal pending review, but Prime Minister Edi Rama said he hoped it would move forward.
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