The UNHCR on Wednesday voiced
concern over Interior Minister Matteo Salvini's second migrant
and security decree which sets fines for NGO migrant rescue
ships that try to bring migrants to Italy.
The UN's refugee agency said it had "expressed a very precise
position on the security decree mark two, in the part that
concerns rescues in the Mediterranean by private subjects.
"In this part, the decree concerns us a lot, we believe that
the increase in the mortality rate in the Mediterranean is
directly due to the absence of a structured instrument of
research and rescue," said Carlotta Sami, the UNHCR's
spokesperson for southern Europe.
She was speaking during the presentation of the Global Trends
2018 report in Rome, on World Refugee Day.
"We have asked all European countries on several occasions
and ever more strongly to eliminate the obstacles that have been
put up in the last few years to the work of the organisations
that carry out rescues in the Mediterranean," Sami said.
"We have asked the (Italian) government to revise the decree
in this part and we have asked parliament to modify it".
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