"Humanity 1, which is entering the territorial waters in front of Catania, is ordered to stop at anchor and will be able to stay there to see health emergencies. We will take care of all the people who need it, such as pregnant women or children. We respect people and humanitarian needs: but at the outcome of the check, people who do not return will have to remain on board and return to international waters ".
The first inter-ministerial measure
(Interior, Defense, Infrastructures) on NGO ships comes after the Council of Ministers
: to speak is the Minister of the Interior,
Matteo Piantedosi
who reiterates the need for the flag countries of the NGO ships to take charge of who is on board.
The Vice Premier and Minister of Infrastructures and Transport M Ateo Salvini
immediately echoed the owner of the Interior Ministry
: "As always, we will guarantee rescue and assistance, but we prohibit foreign NGOs from stopping in Italian territorial waters. Proud to have signed the provision, together with the ministers Piantedosi and Crosetto. Defending Italy is not a crime but a duty" The provision relaunches the government policy of a redistribution of asylum seekers in Europe that takes into account the flag countries and, immediately, the possibility of disembarking women and children on the Italian coasts.
The government does not want to give in to the requests for disembarkation of the nearly one thousand shipwrecked on three different ships that have been stationary in the Mediterranean for days and for which the NGOs are asking for an immediate disembarkation.
In the meantime, he collects the
opening of France
(positively underlined by Piantadosi), which says it is ready to welcome some of the migrants as long as - in this case the Ocean Viking with 234 on board - Italy respects international law by opening one of its ports.
Germany could also be involved in this operation, according to Paris.
Norway, on the other hand, remains on the opposite side, stressing that it has "no responsibility under the conventions on human rights or the law of the sea for people embarked on board" private or NGO "vessels flying the Norwegian flag in the Mediterranean" (this is the case of the 'humanitarians' Geo Barents and the Ocean Viking, both currently at sea).
But it is precisely from the non-governmental organization aboard the latter ship,
The one that seems to be in worse conditions is the Humanity 1 (179 on board, including over a hundred minors), a ship belonging to Sos Humanity, which instead following the refusal of Norway clarifies: "the flag has nothing to do with the rights or asylum duties ".
Also from Geo Barents (572 waiting for over a week) the rescuers of Doctors Without Borders aim to disembark people as soon as possible beyond the reception modalities, categorically excluding any hypothesis of identification on board.
On the Italian coasts, the hotspot of Lampedusa also returns by far to exceed the thousand guests: there are 1,372 migrants present, compared to 400 places foreseen.
In the last few hours, with seven different landings, 251 migrants have arrived.
In Pozzallo, on the other hand, 37 were rescued by a French merchant ship while the crew of the Blue Diamond sailing ship, flying the Ukrainian flag with 99 Afghan and Pakistani migrants on board, off the Syracusan coast: three Russian citizens were stopped for aiding and abetting illegal immigration.
In the face of continuous arrivals, Undersecretary Nicola Molteni - in Lega share - insists on the need to "focus on a flow decree, obviously calibrated on the Italian market and on the basis of what are the needs of the country" because "flows must be governed and not suffered "and" Italy does not take orders from others, that of migrants is a global European responsibility ".
ANSA agency
Norway refuses the Italian request to welcome migrants - Chronicle
Oslo claims it has "no responsibility" for people on board private ships or NGOs flying the country's flag (ANSA)
