Italy's decision to place a number of NGO search and rescue vessels in administrative detention can be linked to the rising number of migrants and asylum seekers dying along the Central Mediterranean migration route, Duccio Staderini, the search and rescue representative for Doctors Without Borders (MSF), told Sputnik in an interview
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th July, 2021) Italy's decision to place a number of NGO search and rescue vessels in administrative detention can be linked to the rising number of migrants and asylum seekers dying along the Central Mediterranean migration route, Duccio Staderini, the search and rescue representative for Doctors Without Borders (MSF), told Sputnik in an interview.
At least 741 migrants and refugees died while attempting the sea crossing from Libya to Italy in the first six months of this year, more than double than during the same period in 2020, according to data published by the International Organization for Migration.
Staderini said that this rise in deaths could be linked to the Italian government's decision to place a number of NGO search and rescue vessels, such as MSF's very own Geo Barents ship, in administrative detention.
"Since 2019, the Italian authorities have conducted 16 port state controls on NGO and rescue vessels, and those led to administrative detention in 13 occasions. So, we've lost overall, since 2019, over 1,200 days of SAR [search and rescue] capacity in the Mediterranean. So we are obliged to denounce that while we are detained, people are dying. And the link between this administrative detention and the loss of life is clear and evident," MSF's search and rescue representative said.
The Italian authorities placed the Geo Barents vessel in administrative detention on July 2 after inspectors claimed that they had found 22 deficiencies with the ship.
MSF is currently doing everything in its power to make the required changes, not because the organization recognizes the "legitimacy" of the inspectors' findings but because the humanitarian organization is desperate to resume operations, Staderini said.
Staderini also claimed that the Italian government considers search and rescue vessels as a form of "passenger transportation," but the MSF official noted that the humanitarian organization follows the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which obliges captains to rescue those in distress.
"They consider us as passenger transportation, and they want us to cover the requirements as if we are transporting passengers, but everybody knows we are not transporting passengers, and the law of the sea states that the captain driving his ship has a duty to intervene and rescue people endangered at sea, so this is not rightly recognized," he said.
MSF has called on the Italian government to release the Geo Barents, and other rescue vessels, from administrative detention.
The Geo Barents vessel rescued 410 people who showed signs of "extreme exhaustion and various vulnerabilities" during its operations on June 10-12, MSF said.
