The rescue ship ‘Sea Eye 4’, of the German NGO Sea Eye, has docked Friday at a port in the city of Livorno, on the west coast of Italy, where they have landed a total of 108 migrants rescued in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
The ‘Sea Eye 4’ rescued the migrants, including several unaccompanied children, from precarious boats in the central Mediterranean and off the coast of Libya. The migrants have now been handed over to the authorities.
The German vessel has had to make a longer journey than necessary due to the response of the Italian government, which instead of facilitating disembarkation in a city in the south of the country, arranged for the port of Livorno in the north.
A similar situation is also faced by another German vessel, the ‘Rise Above’ of the NGO Mission Lifeline, which is heading for the port of Taranto, in southern Italy off the waters of the Ionian Sea. The vessel is scheduled to disembark on Christmas Eve.
Initially, the ‘Rise Above’, with more than 80 migrants on board, was to dock at the port of Roccella Ionica, on the Calabria peninsula, but the Italian authorities finally changed their mind and assigned it the port of Taranto, dozens of nautical miles away.
The organization has warned that the boat could be running out of fuel. «We don’t know if we will make it to Taranto,» Mission Lifeline has warned on its Twitter social network profile.
Italian authorities have in recent weeks referred several boats to distant ports. NGOs believe that behind these decisions lies a tactic of the government of the far-right Giorgia Meloni, against the intervention of civilian rescuers.
«Our fear that the rescue capacities of the search areas are being purposely reduced seems to be confirmed,» denounced the NGO Mission Lifeline.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
