Italy targets charity ships rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean

The Sunday Times

By Michael Sheridan

2 July 2017


After the arrival of 12,000 migrants in two days, the government in Rome is blaming aid agencies it says attract people smugglers.
Italy will threaten to seize rescue ships crewed by aid groups today as the migrant crisis forces it to consider closing its ports to a huge surge of boat people coming across the Mediterranean.

The despairing government has called an emergency summit after 12,000 people came ashore in one 48-hour period after being picked up off Libya.

The interior minister, Marco Minniti, will demand action from the European Union at talks in Paris with his French, German and Spanish counterparts.

Facing a political backlash — local elections last week showed angry voters turning again to the party of the disgraced former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi — the centre-left government insists that the EU must do more to help Italy cope with an expected 200,000 arrivals this year.

It says aid groups are acting as a “pull factor” for people smugglers in the waters off the Libyan coast. If the groups do not keep to strict rules to be discussed at today’s summit, their boats could be impounded and they would be banned from landing migrants at Italian ports.

Italy would accept only naval and coastguard vessels of nations participating in the EU’s official migrant taskforces.

One of these, the Rio Segura, the 2,100-ton flagship of the Spanish civil guard, illustrated the size of the crisis when it sailed into the Bay of Salerno last week laden with human cargo. Hundreds of heads poked above the railings after a rough passage from the seas off Libya.

The crew of 32 had saved 1,216 people, double the ship’s maximum load, cramming them into every corner for the voyage. It was a triumph of seamanship and devotion to duty, but a huge dilemma for the Italians. A small army of police, soldiers, medics and officials stood by on the dockside.

One by one, people came down the gangway. Doctors checked each of them, sending a dozen to an isolation area for suspected scabies cases. Plainclothes officers from the Salerno flying squad, tipped off by the crew of the Rio Segura, led aside 11 men from Egypt and Morocco who were later detained at police headquarters.

“We’re confiscating documents and mobile phones to try to identify people traffickers in co-operation with the Spanish,” said Commander Gaetano Angora of the Italian navy, who is in charge of Salerno’s port.

The anatomy of this shipload told its own tale. Felicity, a 20-year-old Nigerian, watched her son of 20 months run back and forth inside the steel barriers. As she sat under the blazing sun in a kind of stunned fatigue, the Italians played with the little boy through the bars. “I came because the suffering was too much,” she said. “At least my family know I am all right now.”

She was one of many on board from the Nigerian state of Edo, which exports thousands of economic migrants to Italy every year. The nationalities of their shipmates read like a roll call of hardship: Congo, Niger, Guinea, Sudan, Mali, Senegal, Gambia, Ghana, Cameroon, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

There were 256 children, including 13 infants, and 11 pregnant women. Red Cross workers helped some onto stretchers and wheelchairs, giving first aid in khaki tents on the quayside, and then sending patients to waiting ambulances.

"People are getting fed up. The cake isn’t big enough for everyone to share"

Those cleared by the police and doctors filed onto coaches to a reception centre. Volunteers handed them rolls stuffed with tomatoes and a drink of pear juice. That night they were offered a dinner of rice and beans or chicken and potatoes.

Over the next few days, most will be sent to towns and villages in rich provinces such as Tuscany and Piedmont, but 300 will stay in Campania. Officials may have to set up tent camps and requisition disused barracks for them.

“It’s getting too much,” said a veteran officer of the carabinieri paramilitary police who was on dockside duty. “I can tell you people are getting fed up with it. When will it end? The cake here isn’t big enough for everyone to share.”

Salvatore Malfi, who, as the prefect of Salerno, represents the central government, conceded: “Managing a landing like this every 15 days isn’t simple.”

In Rome, the events of last week set off a crisis with Italy’s partners in the EU that has been long in the making.

Minniti, the minister of the interior, was on his way to Washington for talks with the Trump administration when news reached him of the huge surge in numbers. He turned his official plane back after refuelling at Shannon, in Ireland, and demanded a meeting with the prime minister, Paolo Gentiloni, as soon as he got home.

A hard-nosed political operator from the south, Minniti said it was absurd that 27 ships flying the flags of various nations, some operated by humanitarian groups and charities, were all landing people in Italy. “Something’s not working here,” he declared. “Ships flying assorted flags are all - rightly -  saving human lives but somehow Italy’s the only place they come to. That is the heart of the matter. Is that clear?”

Others asked why rescue boats were not taking migrants to Malta, an EU nation that is closer than Italy to the migrants’ Libyan embarkation points.

In a stark move for an ardently pro- European nation, Italy sent Maurizio Massari, its ambassador to the EU, to warn top officials that it had reached its limit. Massari said Italy wanted action to stop traffickers in Libya and demanded that other European countries open their doors to take in some of the refugees and migrants.

“We’ve internationalised the rescue operation but the rest of it is down to just one country,” Gentiloni said. “That’s putting us under pressure.”

A flurry of Euro-rhetoric greeted his plea. Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, declared: “We won’t abandon Italy and Greece. These two nations have been heroic.” But France showed the bleak reality when its police hunted down and sent back 400 migrants lured by people smugglers to sneak across the border from Italy.

The Italians will press their case at meetings of the EU and the G20 this week. Government sources say they will initially press for Barcelona and Marseilles to accept ships. They will point out that Italy’s political stability is threatened.

Voters’ fears about immigration helped right-wing parties to stage a recovery in the local elections at the expense of the centre left and the populist Five Star Movement. More ominously, police were deployed in force in Rome last Friday to stop violence between pro and anti- migrant groups and there were clashes between ultra-rightists and riot police in Milan. “The invasion of illegal immigrants is becoming epochal,” claimed the hard-right Northern League.

For survivors like Felicity, such sentiments were little to fear after the perilous journey from Nigeria. She has, after all, christened her son Goodnews.

Naval ships and planes from 24 nations, including Britain, take part in the EU’s Operation Triton, which provides security, search and rescue off Libya. In addition, a flotilla of ships run by aid groups waits off the Libyan coast to rescue migrants.

Under international law, the Italian coastguard takes control of search and rescue operations and directs all rescuing ships to Italian ports. Nato has joined in Operation Sophia, a mission to identify, capture and dispose of boats used by people smugglers — so far with scant success.


Source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/italy-targets-charity-ships-rescuing-migrants-in-the-mediterranean-lv9pvwm5x