San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Captain of aid ship arrested after ramming patrol boat
LAMPEDUSA, Sicily — The German captain of a humanitarian rescue ship with 40 asylumseekers aboard rammed an Italian border police boat as she docked at a tiny Mediterranean island Saturday in defiance of Italy’s antimigrant interior minister and was immediately arrested as jeering onlookers shouted “handcuffs, handcuffs.”
The migrants hugged personnel of the German SeaWatch charity who helped them during 17 days at sea following rescue from an unseaworthy vessel operated by human traffickers based in Libya. Some kissed the ground of Lampedusa after disembarking from SeaWatch 3 before dawn.
Interior Minister Matteo Salvini had refused to let the migrants disembark on Lampedusa, which is closer to north Africa than to the Italian mainland until other European Union countries agreed to take in the asylumseekers. Five nations so pledged on Friday: Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg and Portugal.
But the humanitarian rescue operation ended dramatically and violently, when the Dutchflagged SeaWatch 3’s captain, Carola Rackete, decided she could no longer wait for permission to dock given the odyssey of the migrants aboard.
“After 16 days following the rescue, #SeaWatch3 enters in port,” the organization tweeted early Saturday shortly before the ship started heading dockside. “It’s enough.”
The captain steered her vessel toward the island before dawn, ramming the much smaller boat, which was blocking SeaWatch 3’s path to the dock.
In past years, Lampedusa had won international praise for its generous welcome to many of the hundreds of thousands of rescued migrants who were brought ashore.
But even with fewer migrants as Italy cracked down on private rescue ships, especially after the populists came to power a year ago, many Italians lost patience toward the foreigners, including economic migrants ineligible for asylum. Salvini’s antimigrant League party has soared in popularity in recent local and European Parliament elections.
Some on the island applauded when the migrants disembarked. But another group yelled insults, including “Gypsy, go home” to the captain. A senator from the opposition Democrats, Davide Faraone, filmed the intense scene and then posted it on Twitter.
“You must handcuff her immediately,” a woman shouted before Rackete was hustled into a police car.
Her lawyer, Leonardo Marino, told Italian state TV that she was arrested for investigation of resisting a warship, a reference to plowing into the boat of the customs and border police. No one was injured but the boat’s side was damaged. If convicted, Rackete risks up to 10 years in prison. She also risks a fine as high as 50,000 euros ($58,000).
SeaWatch defended the captain’s actions, saying in a statement: “She enforced the rights of the rescued people to be disembarked to a place of safety.”
Annalisa Camilli and Frances D’Emilio are Associated Press writers.