Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working on the ground in the Mediterranean migration route are calling for coordination between national authorities and civil society organizations, which addressed an open letter to Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi on Monday.
Speaking of which, the "civilians" are asking the prime minister for a meeting, last Thursday's boat accident off the coast of Libya, in which more than a hundred people are estimated to have perished at sea. It was about members of migrant groups that started from the shores of the North African country. According to the NGOs, the tragedy could have been avoided if there had been proper coordination between the European and national authorities supervising the sea section.
For the call, the Alarm Phone center, which has been coordinating rescue activities on the migration route between Africa and Europe since 2014, as well as the French organization Doctors Without Borders (Msf), the Spanish Open Arms, the German Sea-Watch, the also French SOS Mediterranée , as well as the Italian Emergency, Mediterranea and ResQ-People saving People joined.
The organizations highlighted that more than 20,000 people have disappeared or died in the central part of the Mediterranean basin since 2014, and emphasized that with the sea operations carried out since 2015, the NGOs tried to fill the "vacuum left by the states", but they added, that since they are not sufficient by themselves, "central coordination, rapid search and rescue activities" are necessary.
They lamented that governments have withdrawn their own ships and given up coordinating rescues, thus turning migrants back to Libya, where they are documented victims of violence and abuse, and NGOs have "been the subject of a savage delegitimization campaign in which they are portrayed as criminals," read the In an open letter published in La Repubblica daily.
It is strange that they do not see the connection between being labeled as a criminal and committing the crime of illegal activity, i.e. human trafficking, which is a blessed activity that has cost the lives of many EU citizens. Some of their uncontrolled and illegally imported protégés like to attack and kill the native population. Most recently, a 19-year-old French policewoman fell victim to a Moroccan who attacked her shouting Allah Akbar and wounded her to death. How did this Moroccan get to France? Maybe with the help of an NGO ship? Do these organizations really not feel their own responsibility?
According to the commentary of the right-wing daily newspaper Il Giornale, the NGOs want to restart the sea taxiing of migrants with the call.
Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese previously indicated that they want to regulate the activities of NGOs at sea before the expected increase in the arrival of immigrants in the summer period. Among the minister's plans is the signing of a new "code of conduct", which the then left-wing minister of the interior obliged civil organizations active at sea to comply with in the summer of 2017.
MTI, 2022 plus
Cover: Gettyimage / Illustration
