NGO boats picking up migrants in the Mediterranean near Italy will now have to sail to a port “without delay” instead of continuing to search for other migrants in need at sea. Captains who do not comply will be fined 50,000 euros and their boats will be confiscated for repeated violations.
This was decided by the Italian government on Wednesday. The ships of the NGOs are also obliged, according to the decree, to inform their passengers that they can apply for international protection not only in Italy, but anywhere in the European Union.
The measures are another step in curtailing the activities of the NGO boats. The right-wing government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni argues that the organizations facilitate the work of human traffickers through their activities. The presence of the boats would encourage people to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean from Libya.
The NGOs deny that. At least three international conventions make it a duty to save human lives.
Several days
Missions by NGOs in the Mediterranean usually last several days, with their boats carrying out various rescue operations and often taking hundreds of people on board. The organizations fear that the new rules will make their work more difficult.
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Riccardo Gatti, who is in charge of a Doctors Without Borders rescue ship, told the newspaper on Thursday la Republica that the decree is part of a strategy that “increases the risk of death for thousands of people”. According to Gatti, the rules that make it more difficult to carry out more than one rescue may violate international conventions and are also “ethically unacceptable”.
102,000 migrants
In 2022, about 102,000 migrants have disembarked in Italy so far, according to data from the Interior Ministry. About ten thousand of them were brought in by NGO boats.
Some southern EU member states, including Italy, believe that other European countries should make more efforts to take migrants from them. In June of this year, an agreement was signed in which some countries promised to take over ten thousand refugees from southern member states, but this is hardly being implemented. For example, France withdrew its promise after a diplomatic row with Italy, which refused to allow an NGO boat with 200 people on board to dock in its ports. Eventually, France absorbed these people.