A new “code of conduct” for humanitarian ships entered into force on Tuesday. Fines ranging from 10,000 to 50,000 euros are notably provided against the captain commander if the rules are not applied.
by Olivier Bonnel (Rome, Correspondence)
During the electoral campaign at the end of the summer, Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the Italia Farm Italia far right party had relaunched the idea of a naval blockade to stop the boats working at sea to save migrants. A solution that has not been implicated in fact, but paying in terms of political communication. Now installed at the head of the country, the government of M Me meloni nevertheless carried out its promise to regulate migratory flows with a measure which resembles a declaration of war for the NGOs engaged in the rescue of Migrants. On January 3, a new “code of conduct” for humanitarian ships entered into force in the form of decree
Among the novelties of this text is in particular the end of “simultaneous” rescue operations. As soon as a landing port has been awarded by the Italian authorities to a ship, it must be reached without delay so that the rescue operation can end. No more question now, unless it is special of the Italian authorities, than a boat which has just gathered refugees diverts its route to another boat in perdition as long as it has not touched land. In short, the new regulation of the Ministry of the Interior is confirming a shift which constitutes a clear threat to the law of the sea and international conventions of which Italy is signatory.
This security tour has caused indignation and concern among NGOs “rather than assigning us a clear role to save lives at sea, this decree tries to limit our field of action without proposing any alternative solution”, Sorry Juan Matias Gil, chief of the seaweed rescue operations of doctors without borders (MSF). “We must expect a drop in our rescue operation capacities, and more dead to come.”
NGOs disturb
Another novelty, the Government now requires NGOs to collect asylum requests aboard the rescue ships, so that the administrative procedure is taken care of by the country whose ships beat pavilion. A procedure that promises many legal puzzles. If we follow the new standards, which will prevent Somali migrants from asking for asylum in Rome, if they are collected by a Italian merchant ship off Mogadiscio?
The fear of “the call of air”, the usual rhetoric of the members of the executive and the majority to justify the restrictions, was again put forward by the political leaders convinced that humanitarian ships are “Sea taxis”. The statistics, however, demonstrate the opposite: out of nearly 100,000 migrants who landed in 2022 on the Italian coast, barely more than 10 % were collected by NGOs.
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