Sea rescue
Italy detains Sea-Eye ship for two months
The Italian authorities have decided that the rescue ship “Sea-Eye 4” will not be allowed to sail for the next 60 days. photo
© Maik Luedemann/Sea-Eye/AP/dpa
The private rescue ship is no longer scheduled to leave the port of Reggio Calabria off Sicily for the time being. At the weekend, the “Sea-Eye 4” picked up almost 150 people in the Mediterranean.
The authorities justified this by saying that the helpers in the Mediterranean took refugees on board even though Libya’s coast guard was ready to take them in. The aid organization said such action would have violated international law.
The “Sea-Eye 4” arrived on Sunday after a two and a half week mission in the city on the strait between Sicily and the Italian mainland with a total of 145 migrants on board. According to a spokesman, most of the migrants come from Syria and Somalia. They were picked up from boats that had made the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe from Africa. Deadly disasters occur again and again during the crossing in boats that are often barely seaworthy.