Italy on Friday, December 9, assigned safe ports to three migrant rescue ships due to bad weather, the government of Giorgia Meloni justified on Saturday, assuring that it was not a « times-face » of the executive on humanitarian NGOs operating in the Mediterranean.
The Geo Barents, a Doctors Without Borders boat, should dock Sunday morning in the port of Salerno (South) to disembark 248 migrants rescued during several operations in recent days. The German ship Louise-Michel arrived on his side on the Italian island of Lampedusa on Friday with 33 migrants on board. Finally the Humanity 1a boat flying the German flag from the NGO SOS Humanity, is due to reach the port of Bari (East) in the next few hours after having rescued 261 people.
“On immigration, no about-face”, assured Agence France-Presse on Saturday a source from the Italian Interior Ministry. The Ministry “gave consent to the entry of vessels because bad weather is approaching and sailing conditions would quickly put those on board at risk”, she added. According to the same source, Rome continues to denounce “provocative and risky actions” NGOs that “promote the entry into Italy of economic migrants who have no right to enter and remain in Italy”.
Rome criticizes NGOs
These are the first ships welcomed by Italy after its refusal in November to allow hundreds of migrants to disembark, rescued and cared for by several humanitarian ships, including the Geo Barents. Under pressure, among others, from the European Union, the government of far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had agreed to disembark the most vulnerable survivors while continuing to refuse entry to its ports on theOcean-Vikingship of the NGO SOS Méditerranée, finally welcomed by France.
Italy has seen a sharp increase in entries into its territory by sea this year, according to figures from the Interior Ministry, with 97,236 people arriving on its coasts since 1is January against respectively more than 63,000 and 33,000 over the same period of 2021 and 2020, years of the health crisis.
A large majority of these migrants are rescued by the Italian coast guard, but Rome has strongly criticized the rescue operations of ships chartered by NGOs, which it accuses of creating a draft.