Rescuers ‘colluding with people traffickers’
ITALY: Italy’s intelligence service has evidence that charity boats that pick up migrants in the Mediterranean are colluding with Libyan people traffickers, a senior prosecutor claims.
Carmelo Zuccaro, a Sicilian magistrate, is gathering evidence on traffickers who are tipping off charity boats as they dispatch overloaded migrant vessels from Libyan beaches.
He is also investigating allegations that they are funding them so they have enough ships to pick up the migrants at sea.
Zuccaro said: ‘‘One of the sources may be Italy’s intelligence services, possibly from wiretaps.’’
Information handed over by spies could, however, be unusable in court, he added.
‘‘It’s a problem - if it’s not from the police I cannot use it,’’ he said.
The inquiry is under way as numerous charities position vessels off the Libyan coast to pick up migrants sailing out in flimsy dinghies and disintegrating wooden boats.
Nearly 37,000 have sailed this year, suggesting that this year’s total could surpass 250,000.
About 1000 migrants have died during the journey, either by drowning of being asphyxiated by fuel fumes in the boats.
Zuccaro has said that he does not suspect leading charities such as Medecins Sans Frontieres and Save the Children - which are operating rescue boats - of wrongdoing.
Other charities saving migrants could include the Maltese-based Moas and smaller German vessels.
While the charities may argue that their operations near the coast save lives, critics say it gives the traffickers more incentive to use cheaper, more dilapidated boats, increasing their profits.
A Moas spokesman said: ‘‘We have no connection with human traffickers or smugglers,’’ adding that every rescue it undertook was co-ordinated with the Italian coastguard.
The group also conducted ‘‘rigorous due diligence on donors, sponsors and partners’’, it said.
Aid agencies said that if it were not for them, countless more migrants would perish at sea. ‘‘Now and for some time already, the NGOs are saving lives in the sea,’’ Gianni Rufini of Amnesty International said.
He challenged those suspecting deals between NGOs and smugglers to produce proof.
Zuccaro’s investigation has provoked a political row in Italy over the role of the charities that drop migrants off in Italian ports.
Italy’s anti-establishment Five Star Movement, which is leading the polls, has condemned the charities as a ‘‘taxi service’’.
The charities argue that migrants would attempt the crossing even if they were not there and that they are simply saving lives.
During the Easter weekend, as 8500 migrants sailed, charity boats stayed close to Libyan waters while EU rescue boats hung back.
The task is fraught with ambiguities.
Where traffickers once gave migrants a satellite phone and told them to phone the Italian coastguard when they were at sea, they are now passing their locations on to a number of charities, according to Fabrice Leggeri, the head of EU frontier patrol agency Frontex.
Zuccaro suspects that traffickers are now calling some charities themselves to say when migrants are leaving, and that charity ships leave bright lights on at night to aim at.
That raises the question of whether complying with the international law of the sea, which requires the saving of lives, can become collusion. ’’It’s a fine line,’’ Zuccaro said. - The Times