Italy bars migrant rescue ship
We can’t take in one more person: Minister.
Italy’s hard-line interior minister has refused to let a rescue boat with 224 migrants on board dock in Italy, saying those on board “will only see Italy on a postcard”.
Matteo Salvini’s latest move to clamp down on arrivals from the Mediterranean comes a week after he turned away another foreign ship, the Aquarius, which was carrying 630 migrants and had to reroute to Spain.
Salvini said the latest ship, operated by German aid group Mission Lifeline, had loaded the migrants in Libyan waters against the instructions of Italy’s coastguard.
Mission Lifeline denied Salvini’s claims, saying it rescued its passengers in international waters and asked for a safe port, which had not been assigned.
The interior minister, who is urging Malta to take in the Dutch-flagged ship as he pressures European partners to share the burden, said : “We cannot take in one more person.
“On the contrary: We want to send away a few. Italian ports are no longer at the disposal of traffickers.
“Open the Maltese ports. Open the French ports.”
The Aquarius, operated by SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders, took the migrants to Spain after Italy and Malta refused to let them land.
Salvini has pointed out the failure of other European Union nations to take their share of migrants, a point that Italy will press in forthcoming EU meetings.
Salvini has threatened that Italy will withhold its payments to the EU if it does not get more help on the migrant issue.
Italy’s transport minister, Danilo Toninelli, said the Lifeline remained in Libyan waters and would be seized by Italian authorities if it arrived in Italy.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, facing domestic pressure on immigration, is seeking deals to send back to Italy and other frontline countries arriving asylum seekers already registered there.
Salvini, asked whether his stance could contribute to toppling Merkel, said that this was not his intention. Cleanup of an oil spill caused by the derailment of 33 oil tankers in northwestern Iowa has begun.
Lyon County Sheriff Steward Vander Stoep says between 30 and 40 semitrailers containing cleanup equipment were at the scene near Doon.
The cars hauling crude oil from Alberta, Canada, derailed on Friday and some leaked into floodwaters and eventually into the rain-swollen Little Rock River.
Clean-up crews were yesterday working to contain the oil as close to the derailment as possible using containment booms, skimmers and vacuum trucks.
Rock Valley, a town of 3400 about 8km downstream from the spill, has shut its drinking water wells and will drain its water towers.
Salvini, leader of the right-wing League party, has been leading efforts to reduce arrivals from migrants rescued in the Mediterranean.
About 640,000 migrants have landed in Italy since 2014. The numbers are down dramatically this year, to 14,500, more than 80 per cent lower than last year.
An SWG poll this week showed two-thirds of Italians agree humanitarian boats should not be allowed in the country’s ports.
But off the Libyan coast, where people smugglers operate with impunity, the UN refugee agency said about 220 migrants drowned this week. —