Italy hardens stand, bans migrant ships

ROME: Italy’s interior minister told more foreign non-government organisations operating migrant rescue ships in the Mediterranean on Saturday that they could not dock in Italian ports and blasted one of them for calling him a fascist.

Matteo Salvini, who is also leader of the right-wing League and deputy prime minister, posted remarks on Facebook and Twitter in an escalating row with NGOS as one ship, the Aquarius, headed to Spain after being banned from Italian ports.

Salvini has vowed to continue to block foreign humanitarian boats from Italian ports as Europe wrestles with how to share the responsibility of handling migrants trying to enter the EU from war zones and poor countries, largely across Africa and the Middle East.

Salvini, who has emerged as the most outspoken member of Italy’s two-week-old government, said on Facebook that two other foreign NGO ships, the Lifeline and the Seefuchs, were off the coast of Libya waiting to pick up migrants abandoned by human traffickers.

“They should know that Italy no longer wants to be an accomplice in the business of illegal immigration and therefore they will have to aim for other, non-italian, ports,” Salvini said. Both ships fly Dutch flags.

Italy says humanitarian NGOS are being exploited by human traffickers, a charge the NGOS deny. Rome says only migrants rescued by Italian ships can be brought to Italian ports.

Following Salvini’s Facebook post, one of the NGOS, Mission Lifeline, tweeted in German “When fascists promote us...”

An irritated Salvini tweeted back, saying “insults and threats will not stop us” and that Italians would run their own country. Salvini spoke a day after Italy and France tried to bury the hatchet following a diplomatic squabble over Rome’s refusal to accept the Aquarius.

The ship was off the coast of the Spanish island of Majorca on Saturday morning and was expected to arrive in Valencia on Sunday. It originally carried 629 migrants but some were later moved onto two Italian vessels escorting it to Spain.

Meanwhile, a poll published in Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper showed that 59 per cent of Italians agreed with the government’s decision to block non-italian ships, saying it would discourage human traffickers from trying to smuggle migrants in the first place.