After refusing to accept 226 migrants onboard a German charity rescue ship last week, Italy now seems to relent, saying on Thursday it would take them in, but would impound the vessel, Reuters reported.
The crew of the ship operated by Mission Lifeline charity had spotted migrants in two overcrowded rubber boats in international waters on 14 June. Italy told them that Libya’s coastguard was coming to get them, but they decided to rescue the migrants because ‘they would not have been safe if taken back to Libya’, a spokesman for the charity was quoted as saying.
Interior minister, Matteo Salvini, initially said the Dutch-flagged ship Lifeline should take the people from the Mediterranean to the Netherlands and not Italy. However, transport minister, Danilo Toninelli, later said it was unsafe for the 32-meter vessel to travel such a great distance with so many people onboard.
“We will assume the humanitarian generosity and responsibility to save these people and take them onto Italian coastguard ships,” Toninelli said in a video posted on Facebook.
Earlier this month, Salvini pledged to no longer let charity ships bring rescued migrants in Italy, leaving the Gibraltar-flagged ‘Aquarius’ stranded at sea for days with more than 600 migrants until Spain eventually accepted them.
ICS expressed its concern with respect to this decision of the Italian Government, noting serious implications for the safety of life at sea, as well as trade traffic issues throughout the Mediterranean.
International maritime guidelines say that people rescued at sea should be taken to the nearest “place of safety.”
In addition, the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies do not deem Libya “a place of safety” because they say migrants there are subject to indefinite detention, physical abuse, forced labor and extortion.
Italy has seen more than 640,000 migrants land on its shores since 2014 and is currently sheltering 170,000.
