ROME, Aug 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Italian prosecutors have opened an investigation into alleged kidnapping and abuse of office after Interior Minister Matteo Salvini prevented a charity ship carrying rescued migrants from docking.
While the Open Arms rescue ship lies anchored within swimming distance of southern island Lampedusa with 134 migrants on board including around 30 children, a Sicily prosecutor on Saturday sent judicial police to coastguard headquarters in Rome as part of the probe.
Police took records of communications between the interior ministry and rescue services in order to verify the chain of command for who is preventing the ship docking, the left-leaning Repubblica daily said.
The move came after the coastguard on Friday took the unprecedented step of writing to Salvini to say “there are no impediments of any kind to docking without delay”.
The national search and rescue coordination office in Rome has also asked the interior ministry for the urgent assignment of a safe port.
Italy has evacuated a handful of people from the Open Arms for medical treatment but Salvini refuses to allow the vessel to dock despite other European countries agreeing to take in the people on board.
The mainly African migrants aboard Open Arms have been plucked from boats in the Mediterranean this month.
Around 30 minors are on board, some unaccompanied, and the Palermo prosecutor has assigned someone to take charge of them, with Italian media suggesting they could be evacuated soon.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said that France, Germany, Romania, Portugal, Spain and Luxembourg had agreed to take in the migrants.
But interior ministry sources said that “no European country has taken formal steps to take the migrants on board”. — NNN-AGENCIES
