Migrants take over ship and force it to sail for Italy
MIGRANTS hijacked a merchant ship that rescued them off the coast of Libya and ordered it to head towards Italy, the Italian government said yesterday.
Matteo Salvini, the country’s hardline interior minister, condemned the asylum seekers as “pirates”.
Holding up a map of the Mediterranean, he said that the estimated 108 migrants would not be allowed to set foot on Italian soil.
But human rights groups said they were trying to escape the “hell” of Libyan detention camps and should be directed towards a safe port.
A merchant ship, the El Hiblu 1, rescued the migrants from a sinking boat north of Libya and intended to take them back, claimed the Italian interior minister.
The Turkish-owned vessel was six nautical miles from the port of Tripoli when the migrants reportedly forced the 12-man crew to turn around and start sailing north.
Last night it was heading towards either Malta or the Italian island of Lampedusa.
“They are not shipwrecked migrants, but pirates. They should know that they will only see Italy with a telescope,” said Mr Salvini, who is also deputy prime minister and head of the anti-immigration League party. “I tell the pirates: forget Italy.”
Asylum seekers are terrified of being sent back to Libya because of the inhuman treatment they are subjected to in detention centres, some of them run by trafficking gangs.
Since coming to power last summer, Italy’s coalition government has closed the country’s ports to rescued migrants, with Mr Salvini the most vocal exponent of the policy.
The Libyan coast guard, trained by the EU, intercepts migrants and sends them back to Libya, in a pushback policy that has been condemned by the UN and humanitarian organisations.
Refugees and migrants say they are beaten, raped and sold as slaves in Libya. They are tortured by smuggling gangs in order to extort money from their families.
“No state can expel or push back refugees to countries in which their lives and liberty would be under threat,” said Mediterranea Saving Lives, a humanitarian NGO.
Sending the migrants back would constitute “not just a crime but an act of inhumanity”.
“They should not be treated like ‘pirates’ or criminals, but as asylum seekers who are fleeing the hell of detention camps in Libya,” the NGO said.
The drama came as the EU decided to effectively scrap a naval operation in the Mediterranean that has saved tens of thousands of lives since it began in 2015.
EU member states will withdraw ships from Operation Sophia, which was tasked with reducing migrant trafficking and training the Libyan coast guard. Air patrols will be maintained for the next six months.
Italy commands the operation but since coming to power last June, the coalition has refused to allow migrants to disembark in Italian ports. Nearly 2,300 migrants and refugees died trying to cross the Mediterranean last year, the UN says.