The Captain of the migrant rescue ship ‘Sea-Watch 3’, carrying about 42 survivors, entered Italian territorial waters citing the desperate situation of the people onboard and defying a stringent domestic law that has closed borders to migrants.
No European institution is willing to take responsibility and to uphold human dignity at Europe’s border in the Mediterranean. This is why we have to take the responsibility ourselves. We enter Italian waters as there are no other options left to ensure the safety of our guests whose basic rights have been violated for long enough. The guarantee of human rights must not be conditional to a passport or to any EU negotiations, they have to be indivisible,
…said Johannes Bayer, chairman of Sea-Watch.
The ship had rescued 53 migrants but was standoff for two weeks off Lampedusa, as Italy denied the ship entry and the country’s Interior Ministry threatened the Sea Watch 3 with criminal prosecution.
In the course of this standoff, Italian authorities disembarked 10 of the survivors on medical grounds on June 15, and emergency evacuated one more on June 21 – leaving 42 others on board, including 3 unaccompanied minors, the youngest of which 12 years old.
We have people on board that have gone through horrors in Libya, that have been heavily tortured, but even if this was not the case, any person rescued at sea, by law has to be brought to a place of safety. These are people with basic needs and basic rights. A rescue operation is not finished until every single person rescued has both feet on the ground,
…says Haidi Sadik, cultural mediator on the Sea-Watch 3.
Italy’s far-right Minister Matteo Salvini has been at the centre of global criticism for closing all Italian ports to humanitarian vessels since his League party formed a coalition last year with the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement.
