After more than ten days of deadlock, Italy finally authorized a ship from the NGO SOS Humanity, flying the German flag, to dock in the Sicilian port of Catania. But the Italian authorities want to choose the migrants they will welcome on board the boat. It is a violation of international law, explains Jean-Claude Samouiller, president of Amnesty International France.
The humanitarian boat Humanity 1 transports 179 rescued migrants in the Mediterranean, including 104 unaccompanied minors. Italy, now governed by the far right, has announced through its Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, that the authorities will sort out the migrants: only minors, pregnant women and sick people have been authorized to disembark this Sunday morning. The ship’s 35 adult men remained on board, reports Agence France Press.
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They will be escorted out of Italian territorial waters.
?Breaking: Due to bad weather conditions and after consultation with the port control, the Humanity 1 lies off Catania with 179 rescued people on board. Still no allocation of a port of safety!
Press release: https://t.co/Yk3EpfZP7Y
— SOS Humanity (international) (@soshumanity_en) November 5, 2022
“ It’s a violation of international law, it’s a violation of the Geneva Refugee Convention, insists Jean-Claude Samouiller, president of Amnesty International France, at the microphone of Jelena Tomicinternational service, we don’t sort people like that! On the contrary, we welcome them on the territory and we give them the procedures if they wish to apply for asylum and after an in-depth and individual examination of each person to find out whether or not they have the right to refugee status, which depends how they are persecuted in their own country; so we don’t turn people back without having offered them to apply for asylum.
Bringing people and boats out of Italian territorial waters means putting them in danger and maybe even having them picked up by the Libyan coast guard and we know the situation of migrants in Libya which is an absolutely hellish situation. : there is forced prostitution, rape, torture of migrants, forced labor, some find themselves in a situation of slavery so the European Union cannot be complicit in this indignity. It is absolutely necessary that the countries of the European Union respect international law and save people at sea. cannot compromise with the right to asylum and the European Union must live up to its international commitments and its values on which Europe was founded “.
The German vessel is one of four aid boats currently seeking permission to bring rescued people to safety as conditions at sea deteriorate due to bad weather. So far, he is the only one who has been ordered to enter the port.
Humanity 1 and Rise Abovefrom the NGO Mission Lifeline, are sailing under the German flag, while theocean viking of SOS Méditerranée and the Geo Barents of Médecins sans Frontières are registered in Norway. The four ships alone accommodate more than 1,000 people gathered in the Mediterranean.
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