It is time to scrap the Italian migrant rescue ship order

ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s latest anti-immigration law that aims at curbing NGO rescue boats should be scrapped. This is according to a high-ranking Catholic bishop, who made unusually harsh attacks on Prime Minister Giorgia Melonsi’s right-wing government.

Decree requiring charity-run vessels to ask for a port and sail to it after a rescue is completed, instead of stranding at sea searching for other migrant boats in need, was implemented in December.

Gian Carlo Perego of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, which deals with migration issues, stated that the decree’s fate should be repealed. He spoke Monday during a hearing in parliament.

Captains could face fines up to 50,000 Euros ($54,180) or the impoundment of their charity vessels if the rules are broken. This month, 17 NGOs expressed their “gravest concern” about the law.

Perego sided with the NGOs and claimed that the decree would increase deaths at sea. However, it failed to address the root causes of migration or the operational problems faced by Italy’s migrant reception centers.

Perego urged Meloni’s government not to target NGOs that pro-government figures accuse of aiding illegal migration, but to cooperate with Libyan authorities fighting human trafficking.

Meloni explained that, in December, the decree, which respects international law, was intended to stop NGOs ships from acting as “ferryboats for migrants”, going “back and forth” with human traffickers in order to transport people from one place to another.

Italy is experiencing a surge of sea arrivals from North Africa. However, rescues by NGOs only account for a small percentage of this total. The bulk of migrants are picked up by the coastguard or by private vessels.

The interior ministry data indicates that 105.140 migrants crossed into Italy in 2022. That’s compared to 67.477 in 2021, and 34.154 in 2020. According to the United Nations, nearly 1,400 migrants died crossing the central Mediterranean in 2022.

($1 = 0.9228 euros)

(Reporting by Federico Maccioni, editing by Alvise Armillini and Vin Shahrestani).