The Geo Barents of Médecins Sans Frontières has arrived in the port of Taranto with 85 migrants on board.
The vessel is the first of an NGO to have operated a rescue since the entry into force of the decree establishing a new code of conduct on sea rescue activities by non-governmental organizations.
In the event of violation of the rules introduced by the provision, fines of up to 50 thousand euros are envisaged, in addition to seizure or even confiscation in case of recurrence.
Meanwhile, in the last 24 hours, 822 migrants on fishing boats and small boats have landed on the Sicilian coasts.
The premier, Giorgia Meloni, has returned to the measure in these hours, who writes on Instagram: "Italy is over, which rages against those who respect the rules and pretends not to see those who systematically violate them".
International law - commented the Prime Minister - "does not provide that there is someone who can make the ferry in the Mediterranean or in any other sea and go back and forth to transfer people from one nation to another".
Migrants, Meloni: 'Here are the new rules, no more commuting with smugglers'
In the event of violation of the rules introduced by the provision, fines of up to 50 thousand euros are envisaged, in addition to seizure or even confiscation in case of recurrence.
Among the "conditions" dictated by the decree is that of "promptly launching initiatives aimed at informing the persons taken on board of the possibility of requesting international protection and, in case of interest, at collecting the relevant data to be made available to the authorities ": a way to address the request for hospitality directly to the country whose flag the ship flies.
The first boat of an NGO to dock with the decree in force is the Geo Barents of Doctors Without Borders,
which carried out a first rescue at the request of the Maritime Rescue Coordination, recovering 41 people and then bringing another 44 on board in a subsequent transfer from a merchant ship, again at the request of the Italian authorities.
The Geo Barents then headed for a further rescue destination after Alarm Phone reported a vessel in distress, but she reportedly found no boats or any survivors.
"As we have always done, the MSF team on board gave the survivors all the UNHCR materials to apply for asylum," explains the humanitarian organization.
In the next few hours the ship will be at the port of Taranto.
Among those who will descend on the Apulian city, also the witnesses of chilling scenes:
"A boy told us that he saw with his own eyes people being killed in front of him because they didn't have enough money to pay for the trip,"
said Fulvia Conte, rescue manager on board the Geo Barents, underlining that "this is the reality of what is happening in Libya, of what is happening in the central Mediterranean where every moment is important between life and death".
Other rescues were carried out in the space of a few hours off the coast of Sicily, where a fishing boat carrying about 546 migrants was intercepted and rescued by patrol boats of the Coast Guard and the Guardia di Finanza about 26 miles off the coast of Syracuse.
The castaways were transhipped onto Italian vessels and transferred to the ports of Messina (196), Catania (198) and Roccella Ionica (152).
After about two hours, after a rescue operation at sea carried out about 20 miles away from the Ionian coast of Reggio by the Guardia di Finanza, another 78 refugees arrived at the Rocciallo seaport.
Other arrivals had occurred in Lampedusa shortly before: 198 landed in Lampedusa and the Italian patrol boats again rescued the five small boats.
The hotspot of
There are not only Mediterranean routes. An exponential increase in migrant entries at the Trieste border alone, from 1,194 in the last three months of 2021 to 5,690 in the same period in 2022,
according to data released by the Prefect of Trieste.
The numbers include the tracings of immigrants who entered Italy illegally and those who spontaneously presented themselves to the police forces once they entered the national territory.
