Ship captain faces probe after 234 migrants reach Malta port

VALLETTA, Malta — The captain of a German humanitarian ship that spent nearly a week searching for safe harbor before being allowed to bring 234 migrants rescued at sea to Malta on Wednesday declared during the odyssey: “Saving people is not a crime.”

Still, once on land he was placed under investigation for allegedly breaching maritime regulations.

It is part of a growing trend in Europe and the United States: private groups responding to images of human suffering and deaths targeted by authorities who are often under political and popular pressure to stem the migration tides.

In announcing that Captain Claus-Peter Reisch would face investigation, Malta Prime Minister Joseph Muscat placed squarely on the captain the blame for the impasse that kept the migrants at sea while European nations haggled over their fate.

Muscat said the captain went “against international rules and ignored directions.” French President Emmanuel Macron also criticized the captain, saying he “acted against all the rules” by not turning the migrants over to Libyan authorities after they were found floating in rubber dinghies in Libyan waters.

Doctors without Borders, Amnesty International and two other NGOs asked to meet with Macron over his assertion. “Engineered panic and fearmongering by European politicians over migrations is steering the EU toward very dangerous waters,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

Italy’s new hard-line interior minister, Matteo Salvini, has been instrumental in raising the level of confrontation. His refusal to grant safe harbor, coupled by that of Malta, had forced the French aid ship Aquarius to sail an additional 900 miles to Spain, which agreed to take in the migrants at its port in Valencia.