The rescue ship “Geo Barents”, which operates in the Mediterranean Sea, arrived at the port of the Tuscan city of Marina di Carrara on Wednesday afternoon with 249 migrants rescued from Libya and was chained. “The detention took place because we did not follow the instructions of the Libyan coast guard on Saturday,” aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which operates the ship, said on Thursday.
“The Libyans tried to disrupt the rescue operation by threatening our crew and the shipwrecked people. We will appeal the ruling,” MSF said. This is the twentieth arrest of a rescue ship as a result of a decree issued by the Italian government in January 2023.
More NGO ships arrested
The aid organizations Sea-Watch and Sea-Eye are defending themselves with legal action against what they consider the unlawful detention of their ships in Italy, which are active in rescuing refugees in the Mediterranean Sea. In recent days, Italian authorities have detained three civilian rescue ships under the German flag, the “Humanity 1”, the “Sea-Watch 5” and the “Sea-Eye 4”. The law under which they are detained in Italy provides for the seizure of civilian rescue ships if they are repeatedly detained.
NGO accuses Italy of preventing operations
“The ships are prevented from carrying out their life-saving work due to false accusations. With the ‘Sea-Eye 4’, the Italian government is for the first time blocking a rescue ship for 60 days and thus escalating its actions against the civilian fleet,” the three aid organizations complained in a press release. The NGOs criticized that Italy tried by all means to prevent the humanitarian operations of the sea rescue organizations.
Source: Krone
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