Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
A rescue ship carrying migrants defied a ban and docked at an Italian port.
Migrants’ arrival spurs ire of foreign minister
MILAN — An Italian rescue ship with 46 migrants on board docked Saturday without incident in the Italian port of Lampedusa against an explicit ban after declaring a state of emergency.
Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini — who has barred all private rescue ships from entering Italian ports — reacted angrily to the move with a series of rapid-fire tweets, starting with notice that the ship had “broken the law, ignored bans to enter Italian waters.”
The maneuver was similar to one made by a German rescue ship one week ago that disobeyed direct orders from port officials to moor in Lampedusa — but without the countermaneuvers by Italian authorities that led to the German ship’s knocking against a police boat that tried to block it.
Television images showed migrants sitting in rows on the bow of Mediterranea Saving Humans’ sailboat Alex. But there was no movement to disembark.
Salvini on Twitter pointed to an offer from Malta to accept the migrants from the Italian-flagged ship.
The group, which evacuated 13 passengers to the Italian coast guard on Friday because of medical conditions, cited “intolerable hygienic conditions on board” for its decision to head into port. It said Lampedusa “is the only possible safe port for landing,” as the ship was already in Italian territorial waters.
Meanwhile, the German humanitarian group Sea-Eye said its rescue ship Alan Kurdi with 65 rescued people on board was sailing toward Lampedusa. But the group indicated that it would wait in international waters and not seek an immediate confrontation.
Salvini, after the Alex docked, said he would deny the Alan Kurdi any request to enter port.
Earlier, Sea-Eye said that “we are not intimidated” by Salvini, “but instead head toward the nearest port of safety.” Thirty-nine of its rescued passengers claim to be minors, and 48 fled Somalia, Sea-Eye said.
In Berlin, German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said Saturday that Germany would be prepared to take some of the migrants on board the Alan Kurdi and the Alex “in the framework of a European solution in solidarity.” He said he had told the European Commission of that Friday.