The Italian authorities have given permission to dock in their ports to three humanitarian ships with more than 500 migrants rescued in the central Mediterranean, in what implies a change of policy after the fight against NGOs last month to force a distribution of asylum seekers in the European Union (EU).
“On the part of Italy there will never be a lack of solidarity but rules must be respectedalso by NGOs”, said from the Euro-Mediterranean Summit in Alicante (Spain) the Foreign Minister of ItalyAntonio Tajani.
This is the Geo Barents of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), with 248 immigrants after evacuating a 14-year-old boy and a mother who gave birth on board (along with four other children); Humanity 1 of the German organization SOS Humanity with 261 rescued and Louis Michel with 33.
The latter, financed by the urban artist Banksy, was able to enter the lampedusa portthe southernmost Italian enclave, off the coast of Tunisia.
Later, MSF has received permission from the Italian authorities to bring to the port of Salerno, south of Naples, to their rescued. To do this, they will have to navigate 24 hours in adverse weather conditions, but the NGO has described it as “good news”.
And then Humanity 1, which had requested permission to dock in Italy five times, has received approval to do so in the city of Bari, in the Apulia region, according to local media reports.
Italy accuses NGOs of encouraging the migratory flow
Today’s swift response from Italy contrasts with the situation just a month ago, when the Government of Giorgia Meloni He ignored for days the requests of the NGO ships, which they accuse of promoting the migratory flow from Africa with their mere presence.
First they were prohibited from docking but later they opened their ports to impose selective landings, that is, accepting only vulnerable migrants, although it would end up allowing everyone to go down. The struggle even led to a crisis with Paris, since one of the ships rejected at the time, the Ocean Viking of the SOS Méditerranée organization, had to leave the Italian coast behind to head for the French port of Toulon with 230 migrants.
Just two weeks later, the European Commission presented an action plan which aspired to reinforce the agreed solidarity mechanism to help EU countries that receive more irregular migrants.
This week Meloni participated in a summit in Tirana between the EU and the Western Balkans and celebrated that “for the first time” the migration issue was a “priority” for Brussels. But he emphasized an important factor: Italy, due to its geographical position, is in a “pincer” between the migratory flow from the central Mediterranean to the south, from the dangerous African coasts, and the one that passes through Eastern Europe and reaches its northern border.
Italy authorizes the disembarkation of more than 500 migrants rescued in the Mediterranean