At stake is the health of 985 people rescued at sea. Rome wants other countries to also take charge of its reception.
While three ships belonging to humanitarian organizations are sounding the alarms in the Mediterranean for deterioration of health Of 985 migrants on board, saved near the African borders, France and Germany pressured the new Italian government to allow them to disembark at one of its ports.
Paris said it was willing to take over a part of them.
Germany asked Italy to intervene quickly to help the 179 people who are in the German-flagged Humanitarian 1.
One hundred minors and one baby
The ship has a German flag, is located east of Sicily and has on board more than one hundred one hundred unaccompanied minors and a baby of seven months.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmann said France would agree to take over a part of the 234 people They are aboard the Norwegian-flagged “Ocean King,” which is operated by the France-based group SOS Mediterranee.
The third humanitarian rescue ship is the “Geo Barents”, which manages Doctors without borders, also flying the Norwegian flag and with 572 people on board, including 60 unaccompanied minors.
The Norwegian government, for its part, rejected the Italian request to take charge of the immigrants aboard the “Ocean King” and the “Geo Barents”, which fly their flag.
Italy’s new far-right government warned that I would not accept that his country has to take care of all the immigrants rescued in the Mediterranean. The Italians maintain that illegal immigrants cross the borders of the European Union and that, therefore, is the common responsibility of the 27 countries of the community take care of them.
This Friday it was announced that another 650 people arrived at the port of Crotona, in Calabria, after being rescued from an Italian fisherman’s boat that saved them from a sure shipwreck.
The small town of Lampedusa, an island in the extreme south of Sicily, continues to receive the arrival of small and medium-sized ships. At this time, its capacity to serve immigrants, which is 330 personas, has been overtaken by the arrival of a thousand of people.
Italy defends its position
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani defended this Friday before his German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock, his country’s rejection of the humanitarian ships that save immigrants in the Mediterranean.
Both spoke in a bilateral on the sidelines of the meeting of the G7, the Group of the Seven main industrial countries, in the German city of Munster.
One of the three ships requesting shelter in a safe port, the Ocean King, with 234 people on board for thirteen days, asked Spain, Greece and France for help due to the lack of response from Italy and Malta, the European countries closest to the rescue zones.
Tajani said that he had raised with the German chancellor “with great calm and firmness” Italy’s position against the NGO ships in the Mediterranean. “They must respect European rules“, said.
The new Italian government wants end landings of illegal immigrants, closing its ports to foreign NGOs.
The new Minister of Infrastructure Matteo Salvini, who when he was Minister of the Interior (2018-2019) closed the ports to foreign NGOs, said that if you want to disembark the rescued, they must go to the flag countries, Germany and Norway.
The new Minister of the Interior, Mateo Piantedosi, stated that “the security law will be applied” and that “the flag states of Germany and Norway are competent to assist and receive illegal immigrants.”
Rome, correspondent
ap