Two German sea rescue ships have been temporarily detained by Italian authorities. The “Mare*Go” and “Sea-Eye 4” are said to have violated a new law. Both ships had previously rescued 86 migrants at sea.
The Italian authorities have temporarily detained the two German sea rescue ships “Mare*Go” and “Sea-Eye 4”. The crews of the two aid organizations had previously brought several boat migrants to Italy. With their rescue missions, however, they violated a government law in Rome, the Italian coast guard said.
The law states that after a rescue operation, you should go to port immediately instead of conducting multiple rescues. You also have to comply with the port assignment of the authorities. According to its own statements, “Mare*Go” had rescued 37 Mediterranean migrants from distress at sea. The ship headed for Lampedusa, although the authorities had assigned it the Sicilian port of Trapani.
Because of the long journey to Trapani, your ship was not able to take care of the rescued. “That’s why we decided to go to Lampedusa,” the organization wrote on Twitter.
New law provides for fixing the ship
The ship “Sea-Eye 4” of the aid organization of the same name brought 49 people to Ortona in Abruzzo on Friday morning. According to their own statements, the crew had rescued 17 people last Sunday and 32 people on Wednesday from unseaworthy wooden boats – and thus undertook more than one mission.
After the first rescue, the “Sea-Eye 4” should have headed for Ortona immediately, the coast guard said. Violation of the law entails the arrest of the ship and a large fine.
This year already 50,000 migrants
With this law, Rome had tightened the procedure against private sea rescuers. They repeatedly criticize that they are prevented from rescuing people in distress at sea.
In Italy, the arrival of thousands of migrants is being discussed because of the recent high migration figures via the Mediterranean route. According to official figures from the Ministry of the Interior in Rome, more than 50,000 migrants have reached Italy on boats since the beginning of the year – in the same period last year there were around 19,600.