Victory, says Italy as rejected boat full of migrants invited to Spain
Valencia offered as safe haven after Italians and Maltese refuse to take in rescued asylum seekers
ITALY’S new hard-right interior minister declared victory yesterday after Spain offered to take a rescue boat carrying 629 migrants that Rome had refused.
The Gibraltar-flagged Aquarius was left in limbo in the middle of the Mediterranean after Malta said it was Italy’s responsibility and Rome’s new populist government announced in retaliation that it would refuse the vessel.
Matteo Salvini, the interior minister and the head of the hard-right League party, one half of the coalition, said Italy would not be turned into “an enormous refugee camp”, having accepted around 700,000 asylum seekers in the past five years.
His blocking of the rescue ship was the start of a new, hardline anti-immigrant policy on which the League campaigned heavily during Italy’s election campaign.
A possible breakthrough in the impasse came when Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish prime minister, who took office just over a week ago, gave instructions for the boat to be allowed to dock in the eastern port of Valencia. “It’s our duty to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe and offer a secure port for these people,” the Socialist premier said.
Mr Salvini, who has promised to stop the “business” of irregular migration across the Mediterranean, was exultant. “Evidently raising your voice, something Italy did not do for years, pays,” he wrote on Twitter in response to the offer from Madrid.
“Victory – 629 migrants on board the ship Aquarius heading for Spain. First objective (of the new government) achieved.”
He has accused NGOS of operating a “taxi service” that brings largely economic migrants, rather than refugees, from Libya to Italy.
“Malta is not acting, France rejects them and Europe doesn’t care,” Mr Salvini wrote. “I’ve had enough.”
He posted a photo of himself on Twitter, staring at the camera with his arms crossed, under the hashtag #chiudiamoiporti – “We’re shutting the ports”.
“Italy has stopped bowing its head and obeying, this time there is someone who says no. Enough! Saving lives is a duty, but transforming Italy into an enormous refugee camp isn’t.”
It was not clear how practical Spain’s offer was, given that the Aquarius was located between Malta and Sicily, around 750 nautical miles from Valencia. It is a three-day voyage and the ship’s crew said they only had enough food for a day or two. The Aquarius is operated jointly by two humanitarian organisations, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and Sos Mediterranee.
However, the MSF said it had received no instructions to head to Spain.
A long journey would be a severe challenge for many of the migrants, with some suffering from dehydration and exposure. Seven women are pregnant and there are 123 unaccompanied minors. Some of them are suffering from burns caused by the noxious mix of petrol and seawater that often sloshes around in the bottom of the rubber boats in which they are packed.
Italy has for years accused Malta of failing to pull its weight in the crisis. Malta took 2,775 migrants in 2008 and just 23 last year, claim UN figures.
The Maltese say they are a small island and cannot absorb large numbers of asylum seekers.
Even if the Aquarius is diverted to Spain, more migrants will be rescued at sea by NGO boats that will then head
‘Italy has stopped bowing its head and obeying, this time [we] say no’
for Italy, posing a fresh challenge for the coalition. But the Spanish offer was at least a short-term triumph for Mr Salvini, who wants to expel half a million failed asylum seekers from Italy.
Giuseppe Conte, the little-known law professor who became Italy’s new prime minister last week, thanked Madrid. “This is an important turning point. Starting today, Italy is no longer alone,” he wrote on Facebook.
Few can witness the plight of the hundreds of migrants rescued in the Mediterranean without feeling sympathy for their predicament. More than 100 children are among the 629 passengers who were picked up from small boats and dinghies by the Aquarius, which was then denied a safe port in Italy and Malta before Spain agreed it could dock in Valencia.
Until recently, the ship would almost certainly have ended up in Lampedusa; but the Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini shut the ports in line with the tougher stand on immigration being taken by the new populist government. This has confronted the rest of the EU once again with the political implications of mass immigration from Africa, just as happened in Germany two years ago when Angela Merkel lifted the barriers to a million migrants seeking entry mostly through Turkey.
That land route was largely cut off, encouraging more desperate migrants to make the dangerous and often fatal journey in unseaworthy vessels from the Libyan coast. They rely on nongovernmental organisations like SOS Méditerranée, which operates the Aquarius, to pick them up in the name of common humanity.
But the more hard-headed must question whether the very presence of these rescue vessels is encouraging people to pay traffickers and risk their lives knowing they will be taken to an EU port rather than back to an African one like Tunis or Algiers. The new Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez will doubtless win plaudits for agreeing to take the Aquarius and its passengers. But his action, however well-meaning, is not going to resolve this problem and risks fuelling the illegal smuggling which the EU is trying to close down.