CORRESPONDENT FROM CATANIA. The Sea-Eye4 entered the port of Trapani shortly after 13.30 and is now docked at a pier where the complex reception machine had already been set up this morning. The disembarkation of the more than 800 migrants on board, a quarter of them are minors, will not be immediate and will last many hours; difficult can be completed within the day because there are a series of bureaucratic and sanitary formalities before giving the green light to the disembarkation: the control on board by the Maritime Health and the border police are always the first acts that are carried out when a ship with migrants on board arrive in an Italian port; and they are procedures that take time. Then the migrants will be subjected to an anti-Covid swab and then there will be the identification procedures. Finally, adults and families will be sent to quarantine ships while unaccompanied minors will be transferred to a first reception facility on earth, dedicated to them. Among the 800 there are 5 pregnant women and numerous children under the age of ten.
The ship had arrived in front of the port of Trapani already this morning around 10.30 but had to wait a few hours before receiving the green light at the entrance to the port. Only yesterday evening, two days after the last massive rescue of 400 of the 800 people it has on board, the Sea-Eye 4 had received authorization from the Coast Guard and the Interior Ministry to be able to disembark migrants in Italy. Not a real “Pos”, the safe harbor invoked days after Malta had also refused to dialogue with the German NGO ship, but still a port to disembark. A difference of a legal nature, which avoids Italy having to officially assume responsibility for the 7 rescue operations carried out by the Sea-Eye 4 in just over two days, between Tuesday and Thursday in the Sar areas of Malta and Libya and with the help of another NGO ship, Mission Lifeline’s Rise Above, which also entered the port of Trapani this morning but without migrants on board.
«Our ship’s doctor Daniela Klein and the entire crew – said Harald Kischlat, president of the NGO German doctors which ensures health care on board the Sea-Eye ships – have achieved unimaginable things in recent days. It is imperative that the rescued people can now receive medical care ashore ”.
The president of Sea-Eye, Gordon Isler, still points the finger at Malta, which has refused not only to grant a “Pos” but even to coordinate relief efforts: “We are appalled that Malta’s refusal to assist us left in an exceptional situation. European states should warn Malta as soon as possible to ensure that the Valletta Sea Rescue Coordination Center again responds to emergency requests and coordinates interventions ”.
South of Lampedusa is also waiting for a “Pos” the other humanitarian ship that has carried out rescue operations in recent days: the Ocean Viking of Sos Mediterranée which has carried out three rescue operations and currently has 308 people on board, after that yesterday 2 migrants and 4 of their family members had been evacuated and taken to Lampedusa by the Italian Coast Guard, for medical emergencies.
During the night, the Coast Guard itself carried out a rescue operation in the Italian Sar, 154 miles southeast of Pozzallo: a boat carrying 14 Bangladeshi citizens had been adrift for 5 days, after leaving the Libyan city of Benghazi . The group was brought to Pozzallo. Another landing also in Calabria, the 57th in the last three months: 53 people arrived independently, with a sailing ship of the “Turkish route”, on a beach in the Crotone area.
On the arrival of the Sea-Eye4 in Trapani, the leader of the League Matteo Salvini again attacked the Minister of the Interior Luciana Lamorgese and also the Minister of Foreign Affairs Luigi Di Maio: «A German ship is about to leave more than 800 illegal immigrants in Sicily. Question: have the ministers of the Interior and Foreign Affairs asked Berlin and Brussels to take charge of these immigrants or is it okay for them? ”.