The departure of the Minister of the Interior in the aftermath of the Crotone massacre is greeted by a forest of controversies from all the oppositions (including Calenda) and from the NGOs: “Why don’t you try going to Afghanistan to live under the Taliban?”
“The despair can never justify travel conditions that endanger the life of their children“. In the aftermath of the massacre in the sea of Crotone the Minister of the Interior Matteo Piantedosi he chooses these words to focus on the tragedy: 63 confirmed dead, dozens of other people still referred to with the euphemism of “missing”. An outburst, that of the head of the Interior Ministry, which has aroused the reaction of opposition parties and NGOs who accuse him of lecturing the victims and who, indeed, must report to the Chambers on relief efforts. In the evening, the minister also resented the controversies, claiming in summary that he had been exploited. In the background the first data of the victims: in the tragedy of Crotone, among those who lost their lives, came fromAfghanistan – whose human rights situation is known – three children aged 13, 9 and 5 (the father of 43 and a fourth child aged 14 survived). A 12-year-old Afghan boy, on the other hand, was saved but lost his whole family in the shipwreck (9 people, including 4 brothers and parents).
Behind that sentence by the minister peeps out the line of the government: to avoid tragedies one must stop departures working with i Countries of origin and whoever enters Italy must do so through the channels legalnot up barges insecure. They are not original concepts and he always fails to understand the “how”, since they have been talked about for about ten years. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni wrote a letter to the European institutions because “we need a Europe which, in addition to declaring its willingness, acts quickly” and in response the EU lets it be known that there is currently no proposal for a European naval mission. And Piantedosi himself was received in Paris by his French colleague Gerald Darmanin: by March – it’s the announcement – there will be joint missions Italy-France in Libya e Tunisia. In recent weeks, the ministry underlines, government officials have visited Turkey, Libya e Tunisiaprecisely to make agreements with the local authorities for economic aid in exchange for more effective control of the coasts.
And yet all these movements – which at the moment are little more than announcements – are nonetheless blacked out from the words of the titular prefect of the Interior Ministry. “It is horrific at the words of Piantedosi who can’t say anything else, in the face of a tragedy like that of Crotone, that landings must be stopped”, attacks the secretary of Più Europa, Riccardo Magi. For the Action leader, Carlo calendarit is about “parole unworthy said with one unbearable pomposity“. In Piantedosi’s words “the whole line of the Meloni government – tweets the Pd group leader in the Senate Simona Malpezzi – which even goes so far as to assess the level of despair of people. I am speechless” writes the president of the senators of the Democratic Party Simona Malpezzi on Twitter. According to the secretary of the Italian Left, Nicola Fratoianni“the boundary of decency is crossed”, while Angelo Bonellico-spokesman of Green Europe defines “scandalous” the declarations of Piantedosi: “A mixture of cynicism and lack of respect. I feel ashamed for him who said them”. “Unacceptable words” for the M5s group leader in the Chamber Francesco Silvestri: these people, he says, “risk extremely dangerous crossings because they cling to the hope of escaping very serious situations. All this means not having the slightest awareness of the migratory phenomenon”.
Marco Bertottodirector of programs of Msf Italiahe attacks: “The statements of Prime Minister Meloni and Minister Piantedosi are little more than a sad passing the buckand yet another slap on the faces of the victims and survivors of this tragedy”. Very hard Luca Casarinihead of mission of Mediterranea Saving Humans: “Piantedosi has no respect even for the dead, he is an unqualifiable person and these statements discredit our country. With the sea that continues to return the corpses of children, the minister who has a nice office in Rome, a nice house, a blue car available to go wherever he wants, he allows himself to judge desperate mothers forced into Afghanistan and then raped by concentration camp guards in Libya o Turkey. Because Piantedosi doesn’t try to go inside Afghanistan to live under the Taliban? Before speaking, why not experience passing some time in a Libyan lager? But the shame compared to a massacre that was avoidable does not even touch him?
For Minister Piantedosi, however, “shameful” is the “so high level of exploitation of such great tragedies to question what are then principles that could be freely discussed”. In essence, he defended his statements although precise that tragedies such as these impose “a great respect towards the victimsa posture and verbal choices adequate by anyone, especially by those who have government posts starting from the undersigned”. Speaking to reporters gathered at the Italian embassy, the minister criticized the fact that “the position of the government and mine, in particular, on saying that departures should be stopped almost as if others wanted to impose the resignation of arrivals uncontrolled”. “Well, if this is connected to the desperation of departuresI want to point out that this is a government that has done concrete things since it took office in consideration of the real despair of people”, continued Piantedosi, evoking the creation of “humanitarian corridors already for 617 people: a number that if taken in proportion to the months in which we are in office has no equal and precedent at least in the past ten years”. “If you go back – she says – there is no European country that has done things like this”. Piantedosi then evoked the renewal of agreements “on humanitarian corridors with institutions such as Sant’Egidio, the evangelical churches to renew, revitalize and expand them. In two months we made a flow decree with 83,000 quotas granted on regular flows. So we have given concrete demonstration of wanting us, we do, really, concretely and really, not with empty words, to attest to what is the consideration of people’s desperation and need “. “If we launch a global appeal, and I repeat, in saying ‘stop, we’ll come get you’, it is because we believe that the mix of departures between those who are really desperate and those who are not and who arrive for other reasons causes these tragedies”, continued Piantedosi in Paris, deeming some criticisms “childish e Very limited“.