Premier Giorgia Meloni on Wednesday
criticized the decision by medical officials to allow around 250
people who were on board two NGO-run search-and-rescue ships to
disembark in Catania on Tuesday on health grounds.
The ships, the Humanity 1 and the Geo Barents, docked in the
Sicilian city at the weekend but the government initially only
allowed people considered vulnerable to land and had told the
ships to return to international waters with the others still on
board.
"I read some surreal headlines that were a long way from the
truth in the newspapers this morning," Meloni told a meeting of
lawmakers for her right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party.
"For example, the health authority's decision to allow the
migrants on board the NGO ships to disembark, on the grounds
that they were fragile due to possible psychological problems,
did not depend on the government.
"We found the health authority's decision bizarre".
The premier defended her government's tough stance on NGO-run
ships, which also saw it ignore appeals from the Ocean Viking, a
ship run by French association SOS Méditerranée and carrying 234
asylum seekers, to be assigned a port of safety.
The Ocean Viking is now heading towards France and this case has
caused tension between Paris and Rome.
"The Italian government is respecting all the international
conventions," she said.
"The ban imposed on these NGO ships on being in Italian waters,
except for within the terms necessary for rescue operations and
to assist fragile individuals, is justified and legitimate.
"It is not shipwreck survivors who are on these ships but
migrants.
"The people climbed aboard in international waters from other
vessels and the ships that took them on have the equipment and
crew to host them and provide for all their needs".
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