Italy’s red tape threatens rescue effort
THE CENTRAL Mediterranean is one of the world’s most dangerous migration routes.
Last year 4 576 refugees lost their lives trying to reach Italy from Libya and more than 2 200 have drowned in the first half of 2017, according to the UN’s International Organisation for Migration.
In an attempt to cut down on such deaths Doctors Without Borders has patrolled the waters for more than two years, saving 69 000 lives.
But on Saturday MSF announced it would stop operating in the area.
The suspension, said Loris De Filippi, president of MSF’s Italian chapter, was due to “very credible threats” against rescue boats by the Libyan coast guard.
But the Italian government, he added, is doing its part to make rescue work nearly impossible by imposing new restrictions and requirements on aid groups operating there. Charities have been patrolling the central Mediterranean since early 2015, filling the void left when Mare Nostrum, Italy’s military search and rescue mission, was cancelled in 2014 because it was too expensive.
At first the Italian government was happy that other groups were taking up the physical and economic burden.
But when arrivals of refugees by sea surged in 2016, the government grew concerned that rescue missions were encouraging migration. Over the past few months it has started cracking down on groups that rescue refugees.
Rome “has done everything in its power to create unfavourable conditions for NGOs like ours,” De Filippi said.
In July the tough-on-immigration Interior Minister Marco Minniti threatened to prevent them from docking in Italian ports.
Early this month, Italian police confiscated the ship of the German charity Jugend Rettet, accusing the group of aiding illegal migration. Charges have also been filed against a priest for helping the organisation. Last week the government asked rescuers to sign a controversial “code of conduct” requiring them to have police officers on board, to keep far away from Libyan waters (in an unspecified area well beyond the country’s maritime borders) and to avoid transferring rescued refugees from one boat to another. Most NGOs, including MSF, refused to sign the document, claiming it conflicted with their mission and with international maritime law.
A major problem, said De Filippi, is that to “maintain neutrality”, humanitarian ships could not have armed police aboard.
Forbidding the transfer of rescued people from one ship to another will make rescue missions less effective, because it would force a ship to go back to the mainland as soon as it rescues a few migrants.
MSF transfers refugees to vessels heading towards the mainland, keeping more ships free to patrol. – Washington Post