D.he private rescue organization SOS Méditerranée, based in Marseille, has demanded the immediate allocation of a safe harbor for their ship Ocean Viking after the rescue of 572 boat migrants in the past days and nights. After none of the responsible maritime authorities had taken over the coordination of the rescue operations off the Libyan coast and off Malta, “the exhausted people must be brought to safety quickly” at least now, according to a press release by the organization on Tuesday.
“What we have experienced at sea in the past few days is shocking,” said Luisa Albera, search and rescue coordinator on board the Ocean Viking: “We have rescued hundreds of people who were more likely to have taken the risk of going to sea die instead of staying in Libya. We call on the EU to at least coordinate now so that the 572 rescued can go ashore quickly in a safe place on our ship. ”In Brussels, a spokesman for the EU Commission said on Tuesday that the Union does not have the executive powers to to allocate a port, but could at best try to exert political influence on the EU Mediterranean countries.
Just a time difference
The Ocean Viking was in international waters west of Malta on Tuesday afternoon. Based on the experience of the past few months, it is ruled out that the government in Valletta will offer the ship a port in Malta. In comparable cases, the government in Rome has instead assigned rescue ships a port on the Italian Mediterranean island of Sicily in the past. The leader of the opposition party “Brothers of Italy”, Giorgia Meloni, called on her Facebook page on Tuesday afternoon that “the ship of the French non-governmental organization with almost 600 illegal migrants on board” should “set course for Marseille”. Italy is “neither the refugee camp of Europe nor a French or German colony”.
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In the past few months, German and French aid organizations in particular had sent ships to rescue missions in the central Mediterranean. The Ocean Viking is currently the only private rescue ship there. In contrast to the tenure of Interior Minister Matteo Salvini from June 2018 to August 2019, under Salvini’s non-party successor Lucia Lamorgese there are no longer weeks of port blockades for ships with rescued migrants on board. The political scientist Matteo Villa from the Milanese think tank “Istituto per gli studi di politica internazionale” (ISPI) has calculated that under Lamorgese it only takes an average of two and a half days for a private aid ship with rescued migrants on board to assign an Italian port as a safe berth becomes. After that, the Ocean Viking should soon be able to enter a port in Sicily.
But according to the findings of Matteo Villa, there has just been no turning away from the hard line taken by the right-wing nationalist Salvini against private aid organizations. In his study for ISPI, the researcher comes to the conclusion that there was just a time lag in the obstruction of the rescue ships. While under Salvini these were already blocked before entering the ports, under Lamorgese they are routinely arrested only after the unhindered port entrance. The reason for the seizure is that the ships did not meet the safety regulations or did not have all the necessary registration papers and certificates.
Chicane with bureaucratic maneuvers
Most recently, at the beginning of June, the ship Sea-Eye 4 of the Regensburg aid organization of the same name was arrested by the Italian authorities in the port of Palermo after 408 rescued boat migrants had previously been able to go ashore in Pozzallo. The reason given was that the ship had taken too many migrants on board during the rescue operation. There was not enough rescue equipment for the large number of people on board and the waste water tank was too small. The ship therefore poses a risk to the environment and safety.
The professional association responsible for the approval of ships flying the German flag, based in Hamburg, insists on the position that the Sea-Eye 4 has met all international regulations for approval as a cargo ship and poses no risk to the environment or safety. In addition to the Sea-Eye 4, four other German rescue ships are currently blocked in Italian ports: the Alan Kurdi, also operated by the Regensburg organization, the Sea-Watch 3 and Sea-Watch 4 from the Berlin organization Sea Watch and the Iuventa from Jugend Rettet, also from Berlin.
While Salvini insulted the private sea rescuers and tried to scare them off with horrific fines, they were harassed with bureaucratic maneuvers under the silent regime of Minister Lamorgese. Matteo Villa writes: “At the end of Salvini’s term of office, three rescue ships were arrested in Italian ports. Last autumn, from October to December 2020, seven ships were blocked at the same time under Lamorgese. ”Should the Ocean Viking with its 572 boat migrants soon be allowed to enter a Sicilian port, it could then face another week-long blockade there. As in autumn 2020.
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source https://pledgetimes.com/rome-and-private-auxiliary-ships-just-an-apparent-departure-from-salvinis-line/
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