Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
■ An aid vessel carrying migrants rammed an Italian border police boat.
Captain of aid vessel arrested after docking
LAMPEDUSA, Sicily — The German captain of a humanitarian rescue ship with 40 migrants aboard was arrested after she rammed her vessel into an Italian border police motorboat while docking at a Mediterranean island Saturday in defiance of Italy’s anti-migrant interior minister.
Jeering onlookers shouted “handcuffs, handcuffs” as Carola Rackete, the 31-year-old captain, was escorted off the boat at Lampedusa, which is closer to north Africa than to the Italian mainland.
The migrants, meanwhile, hugged personnel of the German Sea-Watch charity who helped them during their 17 days at sea. Some kissed the ground after disembarking from Sea-Watch 3.
The migrants had been rescued from an unseaworthy vessel launched by human traffickers, but Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini had refused to let them disembark on Lampedusa until other European Union countries agreed to take them. Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg and Portugal pledged Friday to do so.
The rescue operation ended dramatically when Rackete decided she no longer could wait for permission to dock given the odyssey of the migrants aboard.
“It’s enough. After 16 days following the rescue, #SeaWatch3 enters in port,” the organization tweeted Saturday before the ship started heading dockside.
The captain steered her vessel toward the island before dawn, ramming the much smaller police boat, which was blocking Sea-Watch 3’s path.
In past years, Lampedusa had won international praise for its welcome to many of the hundreds of thousands of rescued migrants.
But even as the migrants’ numbers dwindled as Italy cracked down on private rescue ships, many Italians lost patience, including with economic migrants ineligible for asylum. Salvini’s anti-migrant League party has soared in popularity.
Some on the island applauded when the migrants disembarked. But another group yelled insults.
Rackete’s lawyer, Leonardo Marino, told Italian state TV that she was arrested for investigation of resisting a warship. No one was injured, but the motorboat’s side was damaged. If convicted, Rackete risks up to 10 years in prison.