Migrants, more landings and deaths. The Coast Guard against NGOs – Corriere.it

The Coast Guard yesterday announced with a note that it had rescued “over 3,300 people aboard 58 boats in 48 hours” in the Mediterranean. This is to reply to those who had launched accusations after the shipwreck of Cutro. Be careful, though. The note also contained an adverb: “Nevertheless.” And he referred, very clearly, to NGOs. Openly accused for the first time of being an obstacle to rescue operations at sea rather than an aid. A frontal attack.

First of all, the fault – it is written in the note – lies with the “continuous calls from NGO aircraft”, reports that in these days of record flows have “overloaded the communication systems of the National Relief Coordination Center, overlapping and duplicating the reports of the already present air assets of the Italian State”. And the episode reported by the Ocean Viking ship of Sos Méditerranée, threatened by a Libyan patrol boat, is cited for example with shots in the air. The Ocean Viking – according to the Coast Guard – was in the Libyan Sar area so it should have reported the episode “to the flag country” of the patrol boat, i.e. to Libya, instead of overloading the “Italian coordination center in particularly intense moments of relief efforts”. Igor Iezzi, deputy group leader of the League in the Chamber, on the basis of this complaint, is now asking to shed light on the role of the NGOs: “Who do they protect?”.

Meanwhile, unfortunately, there have been two new shipwrecks off the coast of Tunisia, with 29 confirmed victims: 100 dead in a few days on the Tunisian route. Because the departures for Italy, especially from Sfax, do not stop and therefore the government of Tunis on the eve of the visit of the EU commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, yesterday asked Europe to put pressure on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to unblock the 1.9 billion dollar aid package to revive the economy and do not force Africa to exodus. However, the reply from the USA and the IMF was dry: “The money will reach Tunis only if there is a reformist turn after the authoritarian drift”.

One thing is certain: the fight against smugglers can only be won with legality. This is why there is also great expectation for the “click day” that will start today in Italy, foreseen by the new Dpcm for programming flows: for 2023 it establishes 82,705 entries of non-EU workers, an increase compared to 69,700 in 2022. Half will work In fields. Regular entries, without the blackmail of merchants of men.

And the Italian mayors are also mobilizing. Matteo Biffoni, mayor of Prato and Anci delegate for immigration, however says that in order to properly finance the reception system, the Municipalities would need additional resources «quantifiable between 500 and 600 million euros, which can even exceed one billion in the event that the picture of arrivals worsens further”. Because Italy remains a welcoming country: “The whole world should be grateful to us”, said the mayor of Lampedusa, Filippo Mannino yesterday, while the Diciotti ship of the Coast Guard and two other ferries carried away almost 900 migrants from the hotspot, however collapsing with 3,000 arrivals in 24 hours and only 400 places available.

Finally, the Geo Barents of Doctors Without Borders arrived in Bari with the 190 migrants rescued in recent days off the coast of Libya. Adeel, 25, before disembarking gave the crew her poem in English: «Thank you, people of the sea. You have taken us from hell and taken us to heaven. You saved us. We will never forget it.”