“Faced with Italy’s silence”, SOS Méditerranée asked France on Tuesday to assign a safe port for the disembarkation of 234 migrant survivors stranded on board the ship Ocean Viking for 18 days, the NGO announced in a press release. .
The humanitarian ship, which was still sailing off the Sicilian port of Syracuse on Tuesday morning according to a photographer on board, “is en route to France via western Sicily”, said the director of SOS Méditerranée, Sophie Beautiful. The Ocean Viking is the last migrant boat trying to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean from Libya to not have been authorized to enter an Italian port.
“We are in a total impasse in the face of Italy’s silence”, explained Sophie Beau, also denouncing “cases of serious violations of maritime law” coming from Italy, which refuses certain migrants, “putting certain people in danger who throw themselves into the water”. The journey to arrive in France will be a minimum of two days, recalled Sophie Beau, repeating that the NGO wishes “the establishment of a lasting mechanism between Member States of the European Union to give a clear framework to the survivors of the Mediterranean “.
“Risk of loss of human life”
After weeks at sea, the ship flying the German flag Humanity 1, of the NGO SOS Humanity, was authorized to dock on Sunday in Sicily, in Catania, to disembark 144 people, mainly women and minors. On board, however, remain 35 male migrants whom Italy does not want.
The Geo Barents, a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) ship flying the Norwegian flag, also docked in Catania on Sunday evening and the Italian authorities authorized 357 people to disembark, including children, while refusing entry to 215 others.
Tuesday, according to Sophie Beau, general manager of SOS Méditerranée, an association based in Marseille, “the situation on board the Ocean Viking has reached a critical threshold”, the director even fearing “the risk of loss of human life”.
In the past, in June 2018, the Aquarius, the previous ship chartered by SOS Méditerranée, had already been at the heart of a diplomatic crisis, after having recovered 630 migrants off the coast of Libya, disembarked in Spain after the refusal of the Italy and Malta to accept them.