Italy sends migrant convoy to Spain, has words with France

By Crispian Balmer and Steve Scherer

 

Migrants are rescued by staff members of the MV Aquarius, a search and rescue ship run in partnership between SOS Mediterranee and Medecins Sans Frontieres in the central Mediterranean Sea, June 10, 2018. Karpov/handout via REUTERS

 

ROME (Reuters) - Italy sent hundreds of migrants towards Spain in a small naval convoy on Tuesday after shutting its own ports to them, sparking a war of words with France that exposed EU tensions over immigration.

 

Some 629 migrants, including 11 children and seven pregnant women, have been afloat in the central Mediterranean aboard the Aquarius rescue ship since Sunday, when both Italy and Malta refused to let them dock.

 

Spain unexpectedly offered on Monday to take in the group of mainly sub-Saharan Africans, who were picked up off the Libyan coast over the weekend. But the Aquarius is heavily overcrowded, making the four-day trip to Spain particularly perilous.

 

To resolve the problem, two Italian boats moved alongside the Aquarius on Tuesday to share out the migrants before heading west through what are forecast to be stormy seas.

 

The convoy set sail at around 9 p.m. (1900 GMT), according to a spokeswoman for the Franco-German charity SOS Mediterranne which is operating the Aquarius.

 

It will take the Aquarius about 10 days to make the trip to Spain and back, leaving the Dutch-flagged Sea Watch 3 alone off the coast of Libya - a staging ground for people smugglers - looking out for migrant boats in distress.

 

The Sea Watch reported that a migrant shipwreck had claimed at least 12 lives. A U.S. Navy ship, Trenton, radioed Sea Watch on Tuesday to say it had picked up 12 bodies and 41 survivors from a sinking rubber boat.

 

"This shows what happens when there are not enough rescue assets at sea," said Sea Watch spokesman Ruben Neugebauer.

 

Italy has taken in more than 640,000 mainly African migrants over the past five years. Other EU states have largely ignored pleas by Rome to take in some of the newcomers and share the cost of their care, heightening anti-European and anti-migrant sentiment in Italy.

 

Matteo Salvini, Italy's new interior minister and head of the far-right League, has said his decision not to accept the migrant boat is aimed at forcing other European states to help bear the strain.

 

However, French President Emmanuel Macron denounced the decision to block the Aquarius, saying that under international law Italy should have taken the migrants in.

 

"There is a degree of cynicism and irresponsibility in the Italian government's behaviour with regard to this dramatic humanitarian situation," government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux quoted Macron as telling his cabinet.

 

Gabriel Attal, a spokesman for Macron's party, went further, telling Public Senat TV: "The Italian position makes me vomit."

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte responded angrily.

 

"Italy cannot accept hypocritical lessons from countries that have always preferred to turn their backs when it comes to immigration," Conte said in a statement.

 

Graphic:

 

HUNGARIAN PRAISE

Italy also received backing from Hungary's right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is a friend of Salvini and is known for his fiercely anti-immigrant rhetoric.

 

"It was so depressing to hear for years that it is impossible to protect maritime borders," Orban told reporters in Budapest. "Willpower has returned to Italy."

 

Even as Italy dispatched the charity ship, an Italian coast guard vessel with 937 migrants aboard was heading north from the Libyan coast and was expected to dock in Sicily on Wednesday.

 

"No one should dare brand Italy or its government as inhumane or xenophobic," Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli told Radio Capital.

 

The Sea Watch met the Trenton and was asked to pick up the survivors and bodies, but the group refused to bring them on board without a written guarantee from Italy.

 

"We have the capacity to take them on board, but we will only do so if there is a written statement by Italian authorities that we will be able to disembark them within 36 hours," Neugebauer said. "We cannot go to Spain."

 

Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which is operating the Aquarius alongside SOS Mediterranne, urged Rome to drop plans for the lengthy trip to Spain for its migrant passengers.

 

"This plan would mean already exhausted rescued people would endure four more days travel at sea," it said on Twitter. "MSF calls for people's safety to come before politics."

 

Salvini's League scored its best-ever result in March national elections, partly on pledges to deport hundreds of thousands of migrants and halt the flow of newcomers, and has formed a coalition with the anti-system 5-Star Movement.

 

(Additional reporting by John Irish and Marine Pennetier in Paris, Gavin Jones in Rome; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-06-13

Anyone else noticed that lately the 'refugee' tag is more and more being replaced by 'migrant' or 'illegal migrant'

Just sayin'

29 minutes ago, overherebc said:

Anyone else noticed that lately the 'refugee' tag is more and more being replaced by 'migrant' or 'illegal migrant'

Just sayin'

That is because they are just that: illegal economic migrants.

After having financed Africa for the past 65 or so years by the West with almost entirely negligible economic and social results as a result of corruption, enough is rightly enough. Those citizens have elected their own leaders, and should change it from within. Enforce the border a-la-Australia, its proven to work.

2 minutes ago, meinphuket said:

That is because they are just that: illegal economic migrants.

Steady on there mate. The do-gooders and bleeding hearts will be all over us like a rash.

3 minutes ago, overherebc said:

Steady on there mate. The do-gooders and bleeding hearts will be all over us like a rash.

It's about humanity and inhumanity.

 

Immigration is a signicant problem, though not as great as some demagogues would have us believe. However, personally, I'm against allowing people to drown. But that's just me.

53 minutes ago, Grouse said:

It's about humanity and inhumanity.

 

Immigration is a signicant problem, though not as great as some demagogues would have us believe. However, personally, I'm against allowing people to drown. But that's just me.

Who is talking about drowning anyone.

Just ship them back to the coast they came from.

One post removed.   Suggesting illegal activities is not permitted. 

3 hours ago, Grouse said:

It's about humanity and inhumanity.

 

Immigration is a signicant problem, though not as great as some demagogues would have us believe. However, personally, I'm against allowing people to drown. But that's just me.

I'm against letting people drown, too. But I'm even more against overloading lifeboats to the point where they risk going under with all hands.  This is the reality facing a number of European countries - including my own homeland, the UK - as a result of the EU's egregious "open door" immigration policy.

 

As for demagogues, those I find most objectionable are political leaders who espouse the virtues of multiculturalism and diversity while inflicting upon the poorest sectors of their own populations the increasingly painful economic and social consequences of their bogus "humanity".

Edited June 13, 20188 yr by Krataiboy

If any country wants them them make them work while they are waiting to be accepted finally or rejected.

Grass cutting, rubbish collecting sorting etc. Pay them something and if they don't like it or don't want to do it then straight back. Ignore all the self perceived 'it's insulting to ask us to do this or that.'

Integrate or go home.

1 minute ago, overherebc said:

If any country wants them them make them work while they are waiting to be accepted finally or rejected.

Grass cutting, rubbish collecting sorting etc. Pay them something and if they don't like it or don't want to do it then straight back. Ignore all the self perceived 'it's insulting to ask us to do this or that.'

Integrate or go home.

Spain usually gets them working in the miles of under-plastic cultivation in the arid interior. It is good as it means I can buy cheap high quality tomato and lettuce when I am in the UK. The Africans get a job. The killjoys are the NGO's who go around claiming it is modern slavery and are effectively pushing it all to Morocco.

13 hours ago, Grouse said:

It's about humanity and inhumanity.

 

Immigration is a signicant problem, though not as great as some demagogues would have us believe. However, personally, I'm against allowing people to drown. But that's just me.

No one wants them to drown. The best (only) way to stop the drownings is to stop human trafficking under the pretenses of humanity.

Amazing italians. They who flocked the richer countries of Europe between the 60ies and 80ies as illegal immigrants to survive....are now acting hi-so ?

38 minutes ago, arithai12 said:

No one wants them to drown. The best (only) way to stop the drownings is to stop human trafficking under the pretenses of humanity.

Some frigates ready to put traffickers in irons or lead in traffickers would help

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/eu-border-control-spending-refugee-crisis-austria-coast-guard-mediterranean-a8397176.html

 

Sounds sensible.

I am surprised the Italians didn't tell the boats to disembark the migrants at there home ports in Holland and Germany. 

20 hours ago, meinphuket said:

After having financed Africa for the past 65 or so years by the West with almost entirely negligible economic and social results as a result of corruption, enough is rightly enough. Those citizens have elected their own leaders, and should change it from within. Enforce the border a-la-Australia, its proven to work.

Yes, pick them up and take or send them back, these interfering do gooders are part of the problem, nobody will die if they don't take to the sea in unseaworthy vessels. 

Try arriving in Europe with a yacht without all your documentation and see how you get on? 

5 hours ago, observer90210 said:

Amazing italians. They who flocked the richer countries of Europe between the 60ies and 80ies as illegal immigrants to survive....are now acting hi-so ?

Italians, as well as many other Europeans, migrated in scores to e.g. USA and South America in between the wars. Again, they migrated e.g. to Germany after WW2. They went there, because there was demand. They would get a job within a few days. They didn't spend years in government provided accomodations sitting on their hands with clothes and mobile phones provided by so-called volunteer associations, waiting for a job in a country where the unemployment rate is already 30% among young nationals. They also integrated rapidly, learned the language, didn't despise their new country. As conditions back home improved, these waves of immigrants stopped rather quickly.

 

Perhaps you can see the difference from today's immigration pressure from Africa to Europe?

 

Before characterizing italians as hi-so towards immigrants, have you actually experienced what is the situation there today?

1 hour ago, arithai12 said:

Italians, as well as many other Europeans, migrated in scores to e.g. USA and South America in between the wars. Again, they migrated e.g. to Germany after WW2. They went there, because there was demand. They would get a job within a few days. They didn't spend years in government provided accomodations sitting on their hands with clothes and mobile phones provided by so-called volunteer associations, waiting for a job in a country where the unemployment rate is already 30% among young nationals. They also integrated rapidly, learned the language, didn't despise their new country. As conditions back home improved, these waves of immigrants stopped rather quickly.

 

Perhaps you can see the difference from today's immigration pressure from Africa to Europe?

 

Before characterizing italians as hi-so towards immigrants, have you actually experienced what is the situation there today?

Obviously, you did not see what their plight and behaviour was between the 60ies and 80ies in certain European countries. Misery and poverty drives people to many things, and the italians in that era were no better then the immigrants they stigmatize today.

I watched the BBC coverage ,as they went aboard the vessel..the camera panned around.all I could see was middle aged african men......

look at the figures 629 and only 11 children, that tells you something they are not genuine families, they are economic refugees, just here for the freebies

8 hours ago, observer90210 said:

Amazing italians. They who flocked the richer countries of Europe between the 60ies and 80ies as illegal immigrants to survive....are now acting hi-so ?

They brought pasta and tomato sauce.

1 hour ago, Justfine said:

They brought pasta and tomato sauce.

And they enriched the countries they landed in, not try to enforce their laws and religion on their hosts.

The international community should stop messing about and put an exclusion zone around the North African coast, any vessels crossing it are intercepted and forced back to port - soon stop the traffickers who cause the deaths of these poor people and are making profit from them - if the government's really wanted to solve the dam state of affairs that they have contributed to with ill thought out interventions in North African countries over last few years (eg Libya) 

 

As been said was mostly combatant aged men on the rescue vessel in the report, very few women and children. Let France and Spain have them if they want them, don't blame the Italians at all. 

 

I was in Malta few years ago and the amount of young african males hanging about in parts was an eye opener...