Italy Detains Two Migrant Rescue Ships

Italy’s center-right government is again grabbing international headlines by virtue of enforcing its immigration laws.

On Friday, June 2nd, the Italian coast guard announced that it had detained two German charity-run vessels rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean.

The vessels’ crews, the coast guard explained, had failed to abide by a new law, passed by Italy’s parliament last February, which stipulates that after each rescue, rescue ships have to request access to the nearest port and sail to it, rather than remain at sea looking for other migrant boats in distress.

Italian PM Giorgia Meloni’s government has defended the legislation on the basis that, with restrictions imposed on rescue ships, migrants are less incentivised to make the dangerous trip across the Mediterranean from northern Africa. 

One of the ships detained on Friday, the MareGo of the NGO bearing the same name, said it had picked up 37 migrants in the Mediterranean Sea. Although authorities had commanded its crew to land at the Sicilian port of Trapani, they opted for the island of Lampedusa instead, as it would save them hours. 

In a statement, the NGO said that its rescue ship is now “blocked” there for 20 days, and would “likely face a fine” for having broken the new Italian decree of what it called Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s “post-fascist” government.

The Italian coast guard confirmed it had impounded a second ship, the Sea-Eye 4, which it had commanded to dock in the coastal town of Ortona in eastern Italy, carrying 49 migrants. 

It had picked up 17 people in the Libyan search and rescue zone, followed by an additional 32 migrants in Italian waters which, since it constitutes more than one operation, is in breach of the new law.

Until further notice, the two ships are to remain where they are. 

On Lega’s official Twitter profile, pictures of the two ships were posted, with the commentary: 

Do you not respect the laws and provisions of the Italian authorities? Hefty fines and the vessels are blocked: rules and borders must be respected, in Italy as well as in the whole world.

Due navi Ong bloccate e sanzionate a Lampedusa.
Non rispetti le leggi e le disposizioni delle autorità italiane?
Multa salata e blocco del mezzo: norme e confini vanno rispettati, in Italia come in tutto il mondo. pic.twitter.com/1dKqMLKwmp

— Lega – Salvini Premier (@LegaSalvini) June 2, 2023

Fighting illegal immigration was one of Italian PM Giorgia Meloni’s (Fratelli d’Italia) key campaigning issues in last year’s general election. The germ of the idea, however, came from her coalition partner, Matteo Salvini (Lega) who, when he was interior minister in 2018-2019, took a critical position on NGOs picking up migrants at sea and dropping them off at Italy’s shores.

Last December, Meloni said a clampdown was needed to stop rescue ships from acting as “ferry boats” for migrants, going “back and forth with human traffickers to shuttle people from one country to the other.”

However, Rome’s new law has not yet been able to reduce the large influx of migrants coming across the Mediterranean. 

On the contrary, in recent weeks, Italy has witnessed a surge in landings. So far, around 50,400 have been recorded this year, up from around 19,700 in the same period of 2022, according to the Interior Ministry.

During a May 30th visit to Calabria, a region which finds itself increasingly challenged by migrants arriving by sea, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi voiced some optimism however. 

Despite the “so-called increasing curve of the number of migrant arrivals,” these might decrease, he said, since “at the government level we see some small positive signs, also thanks to the good institutional relations with some States, such as Tunisia and Libya [through the ports of which most migrants start their journey].”

The migration issue, he added, “could become more manageable,” concluding that, “in all cases it is a long job that we are building one step at a time, but that could produce positive effects in the future.”