Spanish city set to welcome migrants turned away by Italy
VALENCIA — When the 629 migrants of the Aquarius finally reach land in the Spanish port of Valencia late today, they’ll be greeted by a banner declaring, in five languages: “Welcome home.”
After more than a week at sea, the gruelling Mediterranean odyssey of those rescued by the NGO ship will come to an end in the city, the “safe harbour” offered by Pedro Sanchez, the new prime minister, after Italy slammed shut its ports.
Valencia, which has declared itself a “City of Refuge,” has mounted a vast operation to receive the migrants, with a more than 2,300-strong contingent working to ensure their smooth arrival.
Yesterday at the city’s port, amid groups of tourists waiting to board pleasure cruises, aid workers and medical and security teams were busily readying reception facilities and the system of triage to be put into action the moment the first of the three-boat convoy reaches land.
“These are people who have been on the high seas for many days, people with stress-related conditions, in very complicated psychological states,” said Jorge Suarez Torres, the director of emergencies for the autonomous government of Valencia.
Among those on board are up to nine pregnant women and more than 100 unaccompanied minors, including seven children under the age of five, Suarez said.
It’s a welcome they haven’t found elsewhere.
Matteo Salvini, Italy’s new interior minister, of the anti-immigration Northern League, has celebrated as a “victory” the diversion of the rescued migrants to a port some 1,300 kilometres away, a trip that’s taken almost five days.
Salvini said it had taken such a move to force Europe to listen to Italy’s calls for help, after accepting 700,000 asylum seekers since 2013. But Greece, too, is seeing a surge in arrivals after a drop in previous years, while Spain has become the fastest growing route across the Mediterranean.
Aid groups and politicians across Europe have expressed horror at Italy’s decision. They say it has forced additional suffering on traumatized people who in most cases had fled conflict at home and run the gauntlet of violence, abuse and people traffickers in Libya before undergoing further ordeals at sea.
Yesterday, David Noguera, the Spanish president of MSF, one of the two NGOs operating the Aquarius, said that after years of crisis and inaction, he hoped the incident would act as a clarion call to Europe over the need for a coordinated response.
“The Mediterranean Sea is the most deadly migratory corridor in the world and we have to stop this,” he told The Sunday Telegraph.
At a welcome rally at the port on Friday night, to chants of “No human being is illegal” and strains of John Lennon’s Imagine, many said they hoped Spain’s offer of refuge would herald a more open policy on the part of the new Left-wing government.
“I think this first step sets a really good example,” said Irene Garcia Mendoza, a 23-year-old student at the University of Valencia.
While Spanish authorities stress this is an exceptional case, Salvini has warned they should be prepared to accept more boats from the central Mediterranean.