ROME, July 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A group of 41 rescued migrants have disembarked from a charity ship in Italy, a day after the captain defied a ban on docking in the country.
Despite warnings, the Alex sailed to the port on Saturday because of “intolerable hygienic conditions” aboard.
The migrants have now all come ashore after hours of waiting under guard.
Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini had earlier vowed he would not allow migrants to disembark.
“I saw that the German government wrote me a letter today asking to reopen the ports and to let all the migrants disembark,” he said on a Facebook live stream. “No, no, no, absolutely not.”
Last year, he closed Italian ports to rescue ships and Italy has introduced fines for anyone sailing into its waters without permission.
Migration charity Mediterranea, which runs the Alex, posted an image of the group coming ashore.
Authorities came aboard the Alex shortly after midnight to announce they were seizing the ship and opening an investigation into the captain for aiding illegal immigration, Mediterranea said.
The charity had earlier tweeted that its exhausted crew were living through a “surreal situation”, and prolonging the wait was “an unnecessary cruelty”.
“It’s an unbelievable situation,” spokeswoman Alessandra Sciurba said at the quayside. “There are people at risk of fainting, the toilets are not working. It’s as though we are kidnapped.”
“Nothing is happening about disembarkation and nobody knows what will happen.”
Meanwhile, another NGO ship, the Alan Kurdi – operated by German charity Sea-Eye – announced it was now sailing to Malta after following the Alex towards Italy.
When the Alan Kurdi announced it was following the Alex to Lampedusa despite the risk, it tweeted: “We are not intimidated by a Minister of Interior but instead head towards the nearest port of safety.”
“The law of the sea applies, even when some government representatives refuse to believe that.”
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that 681 people have died in the Mediterranean Sea so far in 2019 – 426 of them in the central region between Libya and Tunisia and Italy. –NNN-AGENCIES
