The German NGO ship Humanity 1 has 179 migrants on board, more than a hundred of whom are minors, and has claimed to have submitted 11 requests to both the Maltese and Italian authorities for permission to dock. Eleven times, access to a port was denied. The ship has been floating in the Mediterranean Sea for nine days now, waiting for a safe harbor.
A total of three ships, in addition to Humanity 1, the ships of Doctors Without Borders and Sos Mediterrannee, with about a thousand migrants on board, have been waiting for days about 12 miles off Sicilian south coast to be allowed to land.
The German government has issued an official letter requesting that the migrants be helped as soon as possible and allowed them to a safe harbor.
Earlier, Interior Minister Piantedosi said that Italy “cannot take care of migrants who have been picked up from the sea by ships flying a foreign flag and who operate systematically without coordination with the authorities.”
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni went one step further. In an interview she denounced the use of maritime law by NGO ships. “If by chance you come across a ship in distress, you are obliged to help people on board. But if you sail back and forth between the African and Italian coasts to transfer migrants, you are violating maritime law and international law.”
During her first visit to Brussels, Prime Minister Meloni made it clear to her EU colleagues last Thursday that Italy’s first priority is the protection of its external borders. Meloni supports the hard line against illegal immigration.
Meanwhile, France seems to be posing as a peacemaker. French Interior Minister Gérald Darmasin told French radio station BFM that his country is willing to accept some of the migrants from the SOS Mediterrannee ship. “We must not leave Italy alone with this constant flow of migrants.”