Veterinarians are not allowed to leave the Mediterranean : The humanity 1 of Catania abandons a humanitarian ship after Disembarking a rescue ship
Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni’s two-week-old government is refusing safe port to four ships operating in the central Mediterranean that have rescued migrants at sea in distress, some as many as 16 days ago, and is allowing only those identified as vulnerable to disembark.
On Sunday, Italy ordered the Humanity 1 to vacate the port of Catania after disembarking 144 rescued migrants, including with children, more than 100 unaccompanied minors and people with medical emergencies.
The captain refused to let the survivors disembark until they got there, which is why the charity operates the ship. The vessel remained moored at the port with 35 migrants on board.
The vetting process of 572 migrants aboard a charity ship operated by Doctors Without Borders was to be repeated with a second charity ship arriving in Catania on Sunday. The selection was completed by late evening, with 357 allowed off but 215 people blocked on board.
Families were the first to leave the ship. One man cradling a baby expressed his gratitude, saying “Thank you, Geo Barents, thank you,” as he left. Another man in a wheelchair was carried down by Red Cross workers.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/06/1134653669/italy-giorgia-meloni-migrant-rescue-ships
The Italian Interior Ministry’s “Piantedosi-Local Government” is calling for a “Compromise to the Rights of Humans and Women in the Mediterranean Sea”
The selection process was protested by human rights activists and two Italian lawmakers. Italy’s new Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi is targeting non-governmental organizations, which Italy has long accused of encouraging people trafficking in the central Mediterranean Sea. The groups deny the claim.
“Free all the people, free them,” Italian lawmaker Aboubakar Soumahoro said in an emotional appeal directed at Meloni from the Humanity 1 rescue ship.
The passengers have faced trauma, they have faced everything that is defined as prolonged suffering and so forth, according to Souahoro, who spent the night on the ship.
He accused Meloni of playing politics at the expense of babies, women and people who have suffered traumas of all kinds.
He said neither translators nor psychologists were on hand during Italy’s selection process and many of the migrants were from Gambia, unable to speak French, English or Italian.
Their fault is to not speak a language other than their own. The Italian government is accused of using the migrants to distract from other issues, including high energy prices.
Doctors on the ship identified people needing urgent medical care when the doctor refused to make a selection. Thirty-six people were not allowed to disembark and one of them was taken away by an ambulance after collapsing.
In a Doctors Without Borders statement, the organization said rescue operations are considered complete when all survivors have disembarked in a safe place.
The charity ships carrying rescued migrants were stuck at sea as food and medical supplies began to run out, and people began to sleep on the floors and decks.
Hermine Poschmann, a spokeswoman for Rise Above, said Sunday that the crew had not received any communications from Italian authorities, even though they requested a safer position due to the weather.
The Ocean Viking, which is operated by the European charity SOS Mediteranee, with 234 people on board, did not receive instructions to go to an Italian port, according to a spokesman. Its first rescue was 16 days ago.
“Agitation is evident among the survivors,” a charity worker named Morgane told The Associated Press on Sunday. After the ship was hit by high waves, seasickness cases soared.
Today the weather deteriorated with strong winds, rough seas and rain on deck. these extreme conditions added suffering,” she said.
France is not a “solidarity mechanism”: Assimilating the European Union with migrants by means of a Norwegian ship on Friday
The law of the ocean obligatesgovernmental organizations to rescue people who are in distress and to provide safe ports as soon as possible, they said.
Italy needs help on the front lines of migration. In what’s known as a “solidarity mechanism,” France and 19 other European nations have voluntarily committed to taking a certain quota of the thousands of migrants who arrive in Italy by sea.
PARIS — As a ship carrying more than 200 migrants rescued at sea docked in a French port on Friday, a diplomatic crisis between France and Italy worsened, signaling further chaos in the European Union’s already erratic handling of asylum seekers coming to Europe.
The ship’s operators called the incident a “dramatic failure” from all the European states that have violated maritime law.
Mathieu Tardis, an immigration specialist with the French Institute of International Relations, says international law mandates that survivors of a search and rescue operation be transported to the nearest and safest sea harbor. “This is why it’s always Italy and not France, when it comes to people coming from Africa and Libya,” he says.
The French government was put on notice by Italy’s new prime minister, who thanked it for accepting the Ocean Viking.
Italy has not met its humanitarian obligations, said the French Interior Minister. He warned of “severe consequences” for relations with Italy because of its refusal to accept migrants.
Darmanin called France’s acceptance of the migrants Friday an “exceptional” decision that would not guide further action. He said France will put a hold on its pledge to relocate some 3,500 migrants from Italy over the next year.
Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said by not letting the Ocean Viking dock, Italy sent a signal to EU nations that they must play a bigger role in relocating migrants who arrive on Italian shores.
“It’s been an everlasting discussion for the last seven or eight years, how we can better disperse the migrants and asylum seekers in the EU,” he says. “And you have some member states — mostly Hungary and Poland — who have refused to receive any migrants or asylum seekers.”
At a time when Europeans are worried about immigration from Africa and the Middle East, there is no sign of mending the diplomatic rift between Paris and Rome. The Europe and Central Asia division of Human Rights Watch reports that conditions forcing people to flee their countries have gotten worse.
Sunderland warns the number could rise. What’s really needed, she says, “is a predictable system for the disembarkation and relocation of migrants, where they will be treated properly, their rights will be respected and their asylum claims will be taken and assessed.”
ROME — At least 43 migrants perished when their overcrowded wooden boat smashed into rocky reefs just off southern Italy at dawn Sunday, the Italian Coast Guard said.
“As of now, 80 persons were recovered alive — some of whom succeeded in reaching the shore after the shipwreck — and 43 bodies were found along the shore,” the Coast Guard statement said shortly before noon.
An attempt to rescue a human smuggler in the Mediterranean Sea by ferrying a baby off the beach in Steccato di Cutro
Humanitarian vessels have a hard time making multiple rescues in the central Mediterranean because the government has assigned their ports of disembarkation to the north of Italy, meaning they have more time to return to the sea.
She vowed to use her leadership to press for crackdowns on departures arranged by human smugglers and to press fellow European Union leaders to help Italy in her quest.
There is a piece of the boat along with piles of splintered wood on the beach in Steccato di Cutro. The survivors wrapped their blankets in colorful sheets to keep them warm.
A Coast Guard motorboat saved two men and recovered the body of a boy after they were in the rough seas, it said in a statement. Rescue divers pulled three bodies away from the wreck, including one that was far away from the scene.
Francis told the faithful that he prayed for the missing and the other migrants who survived. He was also praying for the rescuers and the people who welcome the migrants.
It was also not clear where the boat had set out from, but migrant vessels arriving in Calabria usually depart from Turkish or Egyptian shores. Many of the boats, including sailboats, can reach remote stretches of Italy’s southern coastline without the aid of a rescue vessel.
Another sea route employed by traffickers, considered among the deadliest for migration, crosses the central Mediterranean Sea from Libya’s coast, where migrants often endure brutal detention conditions for months, before they can board rubber dinghies or aging wooden fishing boats, toward Italian shores.