Five international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) this Thursday denounced to the European Commission an Italian law restricting the activities of humanitarian search and rescue ships at sea, legislation that carries “serious risks of an increase in deaths” .
In a joint statement released this Thursday, the organizations Doctors Without Borders (MSF), OXFAM Italy, SOS Humanity, the Association for Legal Studies on Immigration and Emergency urged the European Commission to review the Italian law that regulates rescue activities. migration routes, especially in the Mediterranean.
In the document, the five organizations specifically ask for an analysis of the practices of the Italian authorities in allocating ports far from rescue areas for the disembarkation of survivors rescued by search and rescue vessels at sea. .
“This law and these practices hamper NGO search and rescue operations in the Central Mediterranean, with serious risks of an increase in deaths at sea,” the five organizations warn.
The law, NGOs say, bans more than one sea rescue at a time and imposes the practice of assigning humanitarian vessels to ports far from the area where the rescue was carried out to disembark migrants.
This raises “serious doubts” about its compatibility with European Union (EU) law and with the obligations of the bloc’s 27 member states under international law regarding search and rescue activities at sea.
“The European Commission is the guardian of the EU treaties and has a role to play in ensuring that Member States respect international and EU law,” said Giulia Capitani, Oxfam Italy adviser on migration policy.
In January this year, Italy passed a new decree, which became law in March, prohibiting search and rescue vessels from carrying out more than one rescue operation at a time.
The law, the NGOs add, stipulates that after a rescue operation, search and rescue vessels must proceed without delay to the designated safe place, meaning that the vessels must not provide assistance to other vessels in distress.
The certificate also obliges the captains of the ships that have carried out a rescue to provide information to the Italian authorities about the operation in question, which in practice leads to excessive requests for information.
The NGOs draw attention to the fact that the effects of the new law are exacerbated by the recent practice of the Italian authorities to allocate distant ports for the disembarkation of survivors following rescue operations.
This policy, they pointed out, is not enshrined in any legislation, but has become common practice since December 2022, with search and rescue vessels often being assigned security locations in northern Italy rather than the south, significantly extending travel time , limits presence in the search and rescue zone and increases costs for organizations.
The five complaining NGOs believe that the combination of these measures imposes unjustified restrictions on search and rescue operations and seriously limits the ability to save lives at sea.
“Every day we spend outside the search and rescue zone, whether we are imprisoned or sailing to a distant port, puts lives at risk,” warns Djoen Besselink, MSF’s director of operations.
In addition, the increased travel time to northern Italy, which is more than a thousand kilometers away, also entails risks for the physical and mental health of people rescued on board, the same representative concludes.
Source: DN
