BREAKING: Italian ship rescues migrants as Rome vows to 'stop' them landing

Date created : 19H03/2019 - 02:59  GMT/ZULU

An Italian ship picked up some 50 migrants off the Libyan coast on Monday but it is unclear if it can land them in Italy. An Italian ship picked up some 50 migrants off the Libyan coast on Monday but it is unclear if it can land them in Italy. AFP

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Rome 

by Elodie Bagnol and Biodun Iginla, France24

An Italian charity ship rescued some 50 migrants at sea off Libya Monday, prompting Rome to warn it was ready to "stop once and for all" such private vessels from bringing those saved to Italy.

Italy's hardline Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has repeatedly declared Italian waters closed to NGO rescue vessels and has left several of them stranded at sea in the past in a bid to force Europe to take its share of asylum seekers.

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"Mare Jonio has just rescued a rubber boat in distress that was sinking with around 50 people on board," the Mediterranea collective of aid groups and associations that runs the ship said on Twitter.

Volunteers aboard the Mare Jonio pulled the migrants -- reportedly including 12 minors -- off a dinghy some 40 nautical miles off the coast of the north African country.

A Libyan coast guard vessel had approached the dinghy while the rescue was underway but left the migrants to the Mare Jonio, which was expected to request permission to bring them to safety in Italy.

It was not immediately clear whether the Mare Jonio had defied an order from the command centre in Rome telling it to leave the rescue to the Libyans.

Italy, with the support of the EU, has since 2017 been training the Libyan coast guard to intercept boats as part of a controversial deal that has seen migrant arrivals to Italy drop off sharply.

NGO ships have drawn fire from Rome by attempting on occasion to stop migrants being taken back to the crisis-hit country, which human rights organisations insist cannot be considered safe for repatriations.

- 'Facilitating human trafficking' -

The interior ministry said it was "working on a directive to reiterate the procedures that must be followed" after sea rescues.

"Saving lives remains a priority, but immediately afterwards the orders of the national authorities of the competent territory must be obeyed, according to the international rules of search and assistance at sea.

"Any deviance from those rules can be read as a premeditated action to bring illegal immigrants to Italy and facilitate human trafficking," it warned, adding that Salvini was "about to sign a directive" on the issue.

Should the Mare Jonio request permission to dock, and be refused, it would be the first such stand-off between the Italian government and an Italian-flagged ship.

"Good luck & thank you. We hope the disembarkation outside of Libya will be faster than what we witnessed before," tweeted Vincent Cochetel, the UNHCR's special envoy for the central Mediterranean.

The Mare Jonio is the only privately-run rescue ship currently operating in the central Mediterranean.

The others are either undergoing repairs, docked for a crew change or blocked by administrative or judicial hurdles.

Some 348 migrants have been brought to safety in Italy so far this year, compared to 6,161 in the same period last year.

"Despite a dangerously low SAR (search and rescue) capacity in the Mediterranean due to Italy & EU policy, people continue to risk their lives to seek safety," tweeted Doctors Without Borders.

Some 234 people have died in the Mediterranean in 2019, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

BREAKING: Panama revokes registration of last migrant rescue ship in central Mediterranean

September 24, 2018  02H:26  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Elodie Bagnol and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, Milan

MILAN - The Panama Maritime Authority has revoked the registration of search and rescue ship Aquarius 2 in a move that means there will be no charity rescue ships off the Libyan coast in the near future unless the vessel can find a new flag to sail under.

FILE PHOTO: Migrants are rescued by SOS Mediterranee organisation and Doctors Without Borders during a search and rescue (SAR) operation with the MV Aquarius rescue ship in the Mediterranean Sea, off the Libyan Coast, August 10, 2018. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane/File Photo

Aquarius 2, the one remaining charity rescue vessel still operating in the Central Mediterranean area, is currently at sea with 58 survivors on board.

The decision by the Panama Authority (PMA) means that once the ship comes into port it will be deflagged and will not be allowed to operate again unless it can find a new flag.

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SOS Mediterranee, one of the charities that operates the Aquarius, said in a statement it was reeling from news of the revocation, which it said followed pressure from the Italian government.

“On Saturday ... the Aquarius team was shocked to learn of an official communication from the Panamanian authorities stating that the Italian authorities had urged the PMA to take ‘immediate action’ against the Aquarius,” it said.

Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said the Italian government had applied no pressure on Panama.

A public backlash against the arrival of hundreds of thousands of seaborne newcomers in the past five years helped put Italy’s anti-establishment ruling coalition into office.

Salvini has led a popular crackdown against immigration since his League party and the anti-establishment 5 Star Movement took office in June.

Salvini has previously accused SOS Mediterranee and other charities of acting like a Mediterranean “taxi service” for the migrants.

Salvini said on Sunday that Aquarius 2 had hindered the work of the Libyan coast guard, ignoring instructions.

He said that, according to newspapers, Aquarius 2 was about to have its registration revoked by Panama because it was “illegal and does not respect procedures”.

“They can change their name and flag another thousand times but Italy’s ports will remain shut to these gentlemen,” he said.

Italy has previously attacked the European Union for its lack of support on immigration and has threatened to refuse to back the bloc’s multi-year budget.

Nigerian migrants sue Italy for aiding Libyan coast guard

May 9, 2018  01H:23  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Elodie Bagnol and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, Rome

ROME  - Nigerian migrants who survived a deadly sea crossing last year filed a lawsuit against Italy for violating their rights by supporting Libya’s efforts to return them to North Africa, their lawyers said on Tuesday.

Violeta Moreno-Lax of the Global Legal Action Network looks on during a news conference at the Foreign Press association in Rome, Italy, May 8, 2018. REUTERS/Max Rossi

Seventeen plaintiffs petitioned the European Court of Human Rights last week, Violeta Moreno-Lax, a legal advisor for the Global Legal Action Network, told reporters. She was among four lawyers and several humanitarian groups involved in the case.

The migrants say Italy violated multiple articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, including that people not be subjected to torture, held in slavery, or have their lives put in danger.

The United Nations, rights groups and news organizations say migrants face these conditions in Libya.

This is the first lawsuit to be filed against Italy for its decision to back the Libyan Coast Guard. The country lost a case in the same court in 2012 for directly handing over migrants intercepted at sea to Libyan authorities.

The legal process can take up to three years but should the migrants win they can be awarded damages, and Italy would be forced to abandon its policy of equipping, training and coordinating the Libyan Coast Guard, Moreno-Lax said.

“Using the Libyan Coast Guard as a proxy to turn back migrant boats is just a new way of camouflaging (Italy’s) strategy of fighting irregular migration in the Mediterranean by trapping them in what the Italian Foreign Ministry itself has qualified as ‘the hell’ of Libya,” Moreno-Lax said.

The lawsuit highlights a stand-off between humanitarian groups seeking to save lives on the open seas and Italian authorities backed by the European Union who are trying to stop people from making the dangerous crossing in the first place.

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A spokesman for Italy’s Interior Ministry, which has spearheaded the policy, had no immediate comment.

Libyan naval spokesman Ayoub Qassem said the coast guard does its job within the terms agreed with Italy.

“Regarding the abuse and violations against the migrants, these are all considered as individual acts ... We can’t say Libyan state institutions commit these acts,” Qassem said.

SEA CROSSINGS DOWN

Italy has supplied Libya with seven refurbished vessels so far, and three more have been promised, while the EU has trained about 190 Libyan coastguards.

Forensic Oceanography researcher Charles Heller looks on during a news conference at the Foreign Press association in Rome, Italy, May 8, 2018. REUTERS/Max Rossi

Italy is also coordinating communications with the Libyan Coast Guard about possible boats in distress, according to court documents filed recently in Sicily.

Between 2014 and 2017, more than 600,000 migrants arrived on Italian shores, but crossings have fallen dramatically since Italy and Libya signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at stemming the migration flow in February of last year.

During the first five months of this year, arrivals from Libya fell more than 80 percent versus last year to 6,700 during, official data show. Over the same period, the Libyan Coast Guard intercepted almost 6,000 migrants and refugees. In 2017, the Libyans turned back almost 19,000.

Two of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit were intercepted and returned to Libya. They said they were held for two months in a detention center where they were subjected to beatings and extortion, and where even basic food and healthcare was not provided, before returning to Nigeria with the International Organization for Migration.

All the plaintiffs were rescued at sea on Nov. 6 as at least 20 migrants drowned when a part of their rubber boat deflated.

German humanitarian ship Sea Watch 3 rescued 59 people that day and collected the body of a small child, all of whom were brought to Italy.

The Libyan naval vessel, which had been donated by Italy and was operated mainly by a crew trained by the EU, returned 47 to Libya. In a video shot by Sea Watch, the Libyans are seen beating the migrants they intercepted with a rope, and the vessel then speeds off with a man clinging to the side.

Among the survivors returned to Libya, two were subsequently sold to a smuggler and tortured with electricity in an attempt to extort money from their families, said Charles Heller, co-founder of the Forensic Oceanography project, which prepared a report to support the lawsuit.