Italy: NGO rescue ship fined 10,000 euros

Rome: The ship Mediterranea has been sanctioned with a 10,000-euro fine and 60 days of detention after disembarking ten migrants in Trapani last month, not obeying the instructions given by Italian authorities that had indicated another port for disembarking operations.

The captain and the owner of the ship Mediterranea, which belongs to the NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans, were informed by the Trapani Prefect of sanctions including a 10,000-euro fine and 60 days of detention.

The ship was stopped after it disembarked 10 shipwrecked migrants, among them 3 unaccompanied minors, at the port in Sicily instead of Genoa, in Liguria, on August 23.

Italian authorities had assigned Genoa as the designated safe port for disembarkation, located approximately 1,000 kilometers from the area where the migrants were rescued.

“The migrants were already exhausted, and they had to face waves nearly 3 meters high”, this is how the NGO motivated its decision to dock in Trapani.

The NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans describes the measure “As one of the strongest applications of the Piantedosi Decree that in these three years affected ships of the civilian rescue fleet: basically the ship is held in detention for two months.”

“According to the government, Mediterranea is guilty for wanting to safeguard in the most rapid way possible that these ten persons could receive the adequate psychological and medical care needed,” adds the NGO.

“Human beings, thrown violently into the sea by smugglers, Libyan militia. We rescued them and brought them to the port of Trapani on the evening of Saturday, 23 August.”

“What is the grave crime we allegedly committed?”, adds the NGO.

The President of Mediterranea Saving Humans, Laura Marmorale, commented on the measure on August 25 when it was announced and said the “measure is obscene.”

At the time, however, the number of detention days was not known.

Mediterranea, said Marmorale, is ready to set sail “to continue its rescue activities, activities which are necessary due to the tragic number of shipwrecked persons in the last weeks south of Lampedusa.”

After the ship docked in Trapani on August 23, Marmorale defended the decision of the NGO and stated that “leaving traumatized shipwrecked persons on board a ship, exposing them once again to a context reminding them of the hell they just went through, is unacceptable.”

“It’s like obligating a burn victim to remain in the flames of fire,” she said.

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The ship Mediterranea had just completed its first mission. In fact, it was the NGO’s new boat that set sail in mid-August, and that joins the ship Mare Jonio, the first boat with an Italian flag, inaugurated seven years ago.

“We will issue an urgent appeal to the competent Italian judicial authorities to cancel this “vendetta-style” provision, a measure that is huge and illegitimate from every point of view,” communicated the NGO through its social media channels, stating it was only “guilty” for having refused to obey the absurd and inhumane order received” by the Italian government.

From the Opposition, voices were raised supporting Mediterranea Saving Humans. Angelo Bonelli, Member of the Italian Parliament for the Green and Left Alliance (Avs), decried “A very serious act that confirms the inhumane logic of the Meloni Government: to punish those who rescue lives at sea”.

His voice was echoed by the Party Leader, Nicola Fratoianni, who spoke about “a cowardly, unmotivated and bullying act”, while the Party Secretary of the +Europa, Riccardo Magi, stated that the decision of the Prefect shows “the inhumanity and cruelty of a government blocking ships saving human lives, while this same government sends torturers such as Almasri back to Libya on a State flight,”