Migrants ashore; Italy threatens rescuers
MILAN — Italy’s hard-line Interior Minister Matteo Salvini threatened possible legal action Monday after 47 migrants rescued at sea by a humanitarian aid ship landed on the southern Italian island of Lampedusa despite his explicit ban against them.
The German aid group Sea-Watch said the 47 migrants were transferred to Lampedusa on Sunday evening with the cooperation of the coast guard and financial police. They were among 65 migrants rescued off the coast of Libya last week.
Salvini had given permission for 18 migrants — mostly families with young children — to be brought to land on Friday. But he told a campaign rally that the rest would not be allowed into Italy as long as he remained on the job.
Salvini reacted angrily to the transfer of the remaining 47, saying on Facebook that if “there was a ploy to disembark the migrants, I will take action, because that is aiding and abetting human trafficking.”
Salvini pledged that the vessel, the Sea-Watch 3, would be confiscated and threatened the ship’s crew with arrest, referring to them as “deputy human traffickers.”
Sea-Watch said its ship was too big to enter Lampedusa, requiring the transfer from the Italian vessels, and had been ordered to another port on a “probationary confiscation.”
Salvini said the rescue ship should be taken out of use permanently and sunk.