Rescue crew berates Italy: we’re transporting humans, not meat

ITALY’S hardline interior minister said 1,000 migrants hoping for rescue off Libya should be picked up by the Libyan coastguard and not European NGOS.

As a standoff in the Mediterranean intensified, Matteo Salvini said that despite claims that refugees faced rape, torture, beatings and forced labour, they should be returned to Libya.

“Another 1,000 migrants in rubber dinghies? It’s right the Libyan authorities intervene, without having NGO boats interrupt and bother them,” he wrote on Twitter, his favoured mode of communication since the populist government was sworn in three weeks ago.

He added that “Italian ports remain closed” to NGO vessels that rescue asylum seekers at sea and declared that Italy would no longer be “Europe’s refugee camp” and would reduce the number of migrants rescued at sea who were brought there. His policy was condemned last night by Ada Colao, the mayor of Barcelona, who last week offered to take in 630 migrants turned away from Italy.

“Italy wants to leave the migrants in the hands of Libya, where they torture, rape and enslave them,” she said.

But Danilo Toninelli, Italy’s transport minister, said Italy had saved 600,000 migrant lives – “more than Malta and all the other countries of the EU. Now tell me who is inhumane.” A stand-off continued between Italy and Malta over a German NGO ship that both countries refused to let dock.

Writing to Mr Salvini on Twitter, the crew stated it was not transporting “meat, but humans”.

The aid organisation Medicins Sans Frontieres last night tweeted that the Aquarius was on its way to help, but stressed it could take “many hours” to reach the migrants.