A humanitarian organization that monitors the movements of boats carrying migrants and refugees in the Mediterranean announced yesterday, Monday, that the Italian Coast Guard rescued about fifty peoplewho were in danger, following repeated calls for help.
Alarm Phone, which operates an emergency hotline for migrants in distress at sea, reported on Twitter that «it is relieved to confirm that the Italian Coast Guard ultimately rescued» these people, who had begun calling for help on Sunday.
No further information was provided about the migrants who were rescued.
The nongovernmental organization Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans frontières, MSF) announced earlier yesterday, Monday, that it was rushing to provide assistance to a boat carrying migrants in distress in the Mediterranean, despite fears that doing so would violate the new law on sea rescues enacted by Italy’s far-right-right coalition government.
«We are heading toward the vessel in distress to provide assistance,» an MSF spokesperson, Maurizio Debane, told Agence France-Presse after the NGO’s ship, the Geo Barents, was alerted that 45 to 50 people had gone missing at sea and needed help.
«We immediately requested permission to intervene from the Italian authorities, but we did not receive any response,» the spokesperson explained.
«Under international law and maritime conventions, we are obligated to assist anyone in danger,» he emphasized.
This action could put the aid organization at odds with the Italian authorities, due to a new decree that went into effect yesterday, Monday, aimed at reducing the number of people brought to Italian shores by limiting the number of rescue operations carried out by NGO ships on each voyage.
Doctors Without Borders later reported, however, that they were no longer searching for the vessel.
Earlier yesterday, MSF stated in a series of tweets that it no longer intervenes to rescue people on vessels in distress unless requested to do so by the Italian authorities.
The organization added that Rome had demanded that the Geo Barents not intervene in one instance because the situation was being «handled by Libya.».
The government decree was signed by President Sergio Mattarella on Monday and is now before Parliament to be enacted into law within 60 days, during which time it could theoretically be amended.
The government led by far-right politician Giorgia Meloni came to power in October, promising to «stop» the arrival of migrants and refugees in Italy (more than 105,000 in 2022, according to the Ministry of the Interior in Rome).
