Italy directs NGO rescue ship with 89 migrants to port

Mon, November 7, 2022 

MILAN (AP) — After waiting at sea for days, the German humanitarian group Mission Lifeline said Monday that Italy has directed its migrant rescue ship with 89 people on board to proceed to the port of Reggio Calabria.

The 25-meter (80-foot) ship Rise Above entered Italian waters over the weekend without consent because of storm-swollen seas, after rescuing 95 people in the central Mediterranean. Six were evacuated at sea due to medical emergencies.

"We are relieved that waiting on the high seas is over. The situation on board has become more and more critical in the past few days and hours," Mission Lifeline spokeswoman Hermine Poschmann said. “We expect that the Italian authorities give everyone access to a legally compliant asylum procedure and that people do not have to stay on our ship any longer than necessary.”

Italy has refused to assign migrant rescue ships with a port of safety as it takes a hard line with nongovernmental organizations operating in the central Mediterranean. Instead, it has been instructing them to ports, where authorities allow only vulnerable people to disembark. Italian authorities insist the boats must then return to international waters with those not deemed vulnerable.

The far-right-led government of Premier Giorgia Meloni is insisting that countries whose flag the ships fly take on the migrants, and that the burden shouldn't fall on Italy alone.

Poschmann said that Mission Lifeline has asked Germany to take in more people.

Two other NGO-run boats are docked in Catania, one with 35 people that Italy won't allow to disembark, the other with 214 people. Both ships are refusing to leave, saying that under international law all people rescued at sea are vulnerable and entitled to a safe port.

A fourth ship, the Ocean Viking operated by SOS Mediterannee, remains in international waters off Sicily with 234 rescued people. Its first rescue was 17 days ago.

Riccardo Campochiaro, lawyer of the German charity organization SOS Humanitarian, talks to reporters during a press conference at the port of Catania, Sicily, southern Italy, Monday, Oct. 7, 2022. The captain of the German organization's rescue ship, the Humanity 1, refused Italian orders to leave the Sicilian port Sunday after Italian authorities refused to let 35 of the migrants on his ship disembark — part of directives by Italy's new far-right-led government targeting foreign-flagged rescue ships. 

AP Photo/Salvatore Cavalli