Italy rejects NGO ship's request for closer safe port

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
8 Jan 19:12

The Italian government has rejected to provide a safe port for a ship run by Doctors Without Borders that rescued 73 migrants.

Geo Barents, a ship that took part in an operation by members of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to rescue migrants in the Mediterranean Sea, June 11, 2021 (Reuters)

The Italian government has rejected the request of Geo Barents, the ship operated by Doctors Without Borders non-governmental organization (NGO) to provide a safe port closer to the location where it rescued 73 migrants, an NGO official said on Sunday.

The Ministry of the Interior in Italy did not comment on the issue.

The conflict is part of a broader tug-of-war between Italy's right-wing government and NGOs over where to disembark migrants rescued in the Mediterranean sea.

Geo Barents received on Saturday permission from Rome to dock at Ancona port, in central Italy and on the country's east coast, which is far from Sicily where NGO boats usually disembarked rescued migrants.

"The interior ministry rejected our request for a closer safe port for the disembarkation of the 73 survivors on board the Geo Barents. The ship is heading north," Doctors Without Borders' Mission Head Juan Matias Gil said in a message on Sunday.

After rescuing migrants on a rubber dinghy offshore Libya, Geo Barents on Saturday asked for a closer port, adding it would take it more than three days to reach Ancona amid deteriorating weather conditions.

It is worth noting that during the summer election campaign, Giorgia Meloni, the head of the far-right Italian party Fratelli d'Italia, reintroduced the concept of a naval blockade to prevent vessels from intervening at sea to rescue migrants. Meloni's far-right government, which is now in power, has declared war on NGOs involved in rescuing migrants. A new "code of conduct" for humanitarian ships went into effect as a decree on January 3.

This text's new provisions include the discontinuation of "simultaneous" rescue efforts. Once an Italian port of disembarkation has been given to a vessel, it must be reached as soon as possible in order to finish the rescue mission.

Last month, Italy's new government under the far-right leader, Georgia Meloni, refused to allow a Norwegian-flagged NGO ship with 234 migrants on board rescued from the Mediterranean to dock.