The ship Aita Mari of the Spanish non-governmental organization Salvamento Maritimo Humanitario recovered 31 migrants from a boat near Libyan waters. In the same way, Emergency’s Life Support vessel recovered over 100 of them, in two different interventions, in that same stretch of sea. The area of operation of the NGOs is always the same, that of the Cyrenaic route. Although it is not the busiest, all the NGOs operate there, almost ignoring that Tripolitania. The reasons for the selection made at the origin by the organizations are not clear, as they have in fact chosen to focus only on one route, ignoring the other. Following the interventions carried out between 15 and 16 February, the ships were assigned the port of Civitavecchia.
After the assignment of Ancona to the Geo Barents and Ravenna to the Ocean Viking, the government has chosen a port on the Tyrrhenian side for the ship, so as not to concentrate all the landings on one area of the country. There were vibrant protests from Doctors Without Borders for the assignment of the port of Ancona, with the usual request from the NGO to land in Sicily. This despite the fact that the Viminale has reiterated on several occasions that they will not be open i southern ports of the country for a matter of logistical management, after having been stressed for so many years by hundreds of landings with thousands of migrants.
In an interview with Corriere della Sera, the Minister for Civil Protection, Nello Musumeci, which is responsible for coordinating the rules concerning coasts and the sea, once again explained the direction taken by the government. As for the criticisms that NGOs cyclically address to the executive, Musumeci underlined that “are unfounded, there is no criminal action, everyone has to do their job. We have adopted rules in line with the government’s policy and which do not violate international law“. In fact, the minister specified that “it is one thing to help those in danger of drowning, another thing is to do a service of taxi of human flesh, ending up with food human trafficking victims of criminal organizations“.
The NGOs continue to insist on the request for a port in Italy, despite the fact that our country is not responsible for these interventions, which are carried out in the SAR area of Libya or Malta and, in any case, a short distance from Tunisia, which is the country with the nearest safe harbours. The stubbornness of the request for a port in Italy probably has other objectives, such as that of attacking the government with the support of the opposition.