Boats operated by NGOs in the Mediterranean Sea are not responsible for migrant relocation as they do not represent a national government, migration experts have told EURACTIV, contradicting the claim used by the Italian government.
Giorgia Meloni’s new Italian government blocked for days migrants from disembarking from NGO vessels – repeating tactics used by then Interior Minister Matteo Salvini in 2018 – while also allowing for the selected disembarkation for those considered ‘vulnerable’ by Italian authorities.
While women, children and those with medical issues have been allowed to disembark, the presence of others on board has led to tensions. The vessels called to immediately disembark them as some were on hunger strike and others jumped from the boats into the water in desperation.
They eventually disembarked all migrants on Tuesday (8 November).
During the last week, four boats with almost 1000 migrants onboard have arrived along Italy’s coasts, and Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi has stated that “they must return outside territorial waters, and the flag state must take charge of them.”
These rescue ships are owned by private NGOs and the national flag displayed on the vessel represents the country in which they are officially registered, despite the fact that they operate in the Mediterranean Sea, and do not represent the country of provenance.
However, Piantedosi’s argument is disputed by UN agencies as well as migration and human rights experts.
Once the vessels enter Italian waters, any return to international waters “would amount to a collective expulsion”, Judith Sunderland from Human Rights Watch told EURACTIV.
Piantedosi said at a press conference on Friday (4 November) that the country whose flag adorns the vessel rescuing migrants is responsible for relocating them to and then on from that country, but not everyone agrees.
“Despite the Italian government’s claims that NGO vessels’ flag states should be responsible for the shipwrecked migrants, as long as they are in the Italian sea, they are subject to Italian jurisdiction”, Francesco Negozio, PhD candidate and UN expert, told EURACTIV.
“Under maritime law, a rescue terminates when all rescued persons are disembarked in a place of safety,” Judith Sunderland said, noting that partial disembarkation would not qualify as the mission being completed.
The latter also challenges the vulnerability assessments and the amount of time migrants are on the boat: “A ship is not a place of safety except for a very short period of time, and it is not the place where genuine assessments of people’s vulnerability or their requests for asylum can be considered” she added.
Italy calls for redistribution of migrants as 1,000 people wait on board
As of Sunday, four boats with almost 1,000 migrants on board were stationed off the Italian coast, but the government only allowed women and children to disembark while claiming EU laws are being breached and asking for redistribution assistance.
The first …
Unheard relocation
As the Italian government digs its heels in, international attention is increasing along with calls for the migrants to be relocated to other EU states.
French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told French radio RMC-BFMTV on Friday (4 November) that “if this rescue ship [Ocean Viking] is welcomed, we will welcome part of the migrants, of women and children, so that Italy did not take charge alone of all of them”.
Norway’s Ambassador in Rome, Johan Vibe, told Reuters last week that there is “no responsibility under human rights conventions or the law of the sea for persons embarked on board ships’ private or NGOs with the Norwegian flag in the Mediterranean”.
The Ocean Viking and Geo Barents are among the rescue boats involved in the case and are both registered in Norway.
Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orban congratulated new Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Twitter for protecting the “borders of Europe” on Sunday (6 November).
However, the Hungarian leader did not reply to Meloni’s request for relocation.
During Salvini’s move to prevent boats from landing four years ago, “a small number of EU member states negotiated on a ship-by-ship basis about relocating the rescued migrants,” Lucas Rasche, a migration expert at the Jacques Delors Centre, told EURACTIV.
“However, this was very inefficient as only 4% of the total number of arrivals were, in fact, transferred from Italy to other EU countries”, he added.
According to research from the Italian Institute for Political International Studies (ISPI), less than 2% of migrants who arrived between October 2019 and May 2021 were relocated to other EU countries, while arrivals continue to increase.
EU and international sides
Relocation is one of the most delicate points of the Pact on Migration and Asylum, one of the biggest EU migration piece of legislation, currently under negotiations, which according to EU institutions, it should be approved before the 2024 European elections.
While the European Commission has welcomed “the disembarkation of vulnerable people”, it stated that it is not “responsible for the operation” and pointed out that “It is a duty for the member states to save lives and to ensure they take upon legal obligation”.
However, the United Nations agencies UNHCR and OIM took a much tougher stance, calling for immediate disembarkation on Tuesday (8 November).
Not the first time
In 2018, Salvini blocked the disembarkation of migrants from different rescue ships and in April 2021, he went on trial, facing charges of kidnapping and negligence for denying the landing in Lampedusa of asylum seekers rescued by the Spanish NGO Open Arms in 2019.
“Salvini regularly denied NGO vessels with migrants rescued at sea aboard to enter Italian ports and used these artificially created crises to spur anti-immigrant sentiments among the Italian electorate”, said Rasche.
The trial is still ongoing while Salvini is currently Deputy PM and infrastructure minister.
[Edited by Alice Taylor and Benjamin Fox]
Source: euractiv.com
