In the end, everyone has been able to disembark. Italy has allowed this Tuesday that the 212 migrants who remained on board the ship Geo Barents, of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) set foot in the port of Catania, in Sicily, after in a first selection the Government of Giorgia Meloni considered that they should turn back and return to international waters because they are not vulnerable enough.
Thus ends one of the episodes of the first migratory crisis in Meloni, which has put into practice its strategy of selective landings by only allowing minors, women and people with health problems to enter Italy at first to complicate the lives of the humanitarian organizations that save lives in the central Mediterranean, whom they consider complicit in the trafficking of human beings in these waters.
The Geo Barents arrived on Sunday with 572 people on board, but 212 people were still on the ship until today after MSF refused to return to international waters, defending that it violated the right to asylum. Today the organization has demanded that the health inspectors return on board to analyze the difficult situation on the ship, since there were panic attacks and an outbreak of scabies. Three people had jumped into the sea to swim to land. After twelve hours analyzing the situation, Italian officials have ruled that everyone should disembark.
“Staying in port is supported by the law that says we should immediately disembark in a safe place all survivors on board. We are docked in a safe place, applying the law, we will not leave until we achieve it and we can conclude this search and rescue operation. Our legal team is assessing all possible legal actions to put an end to this arbitrary situation against the well-being of the survivors”, warned the MSF head of mission, Juan Matías Gil.
At the Catania dock there is also the Humanity 1, of the German NGO SOS Humanity, the first to suffer from the policy of selective landings and where there are still 35 people on board. Tension is also high there after most are on hunger strike and Italian officials are considering whether to let them disembark. In Reggio Calabria, on the other hand, all the 89 migrants who were aboard the small ship Rise Above, of the German NGO Mission Lifeline, have disembarked, where there has been no selection.
Very different is the state of the last of the humanitarian ships that was waiting to know if Italy was going to allow them a port. It is the Ocean Viking of the French NGO SOS Mediterranée, which, after the Italian rejection, has set sail for France with 234 rescued, presumably to Corsica or Marseille, something that has been highly celebrated by the Italian Infrastructure Minister, Matteo Salvini. “Well, the air has changed”, he has celebrated on his social networks.
Meloni, for his part, thanked the French decision to "share responsibility for the migratory emergency" and has asked that this "line of European collaboration" continue with the states most exposed due to their geographical position so that a "shared solution" can be found. and common to stop the trafficking of human beings and manage in a legal and balanced way the migratory phenomenon that has historical dimensions”.
The far-right prime minister's view is much the same as Salvini's during his turbulent years as interior minister. They consider that it is the flag states of the humanitarian ships that are responsible for the migrants they rescue, and not Italy, because it already welcomes all those who reach its shores by their own means. "If you want to dwell on the exegesis of bureaucratic expressions, go ahead, but we do not accept lessons from anyone from the point of view of respect for human rights," the Italian Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, who had referred to the people, claimed today. of less vulnerability that did not allow unloading as "residual cargo".
