Italy locks its ports while a Spanish boat rescues 60 migrants

The full moon was the only light that a 9-year-old terrified boy from the Central African Republic climbed a rubber dinghy with duct tape, risking death in the dark waters off Libya with his parents and 57 other victims of trafficking. migrants

After a long night on the Mediterranean Sea, a Spanish rescue boat spotted them on the horizon after dawn.

"People were shouting, I was scared," said the boy, Krisley Dokouada. "But after seeing the lifeboat, I knew there was no more danger."

Their savior Saturday was the Open Arms, which became the third rescue ship run by humanitarian groups to draw the Italian Interior Minister's eye. , Matteo Salvini. He promised that the new Italian populist government would no longer allow such rescue boats to dock in Italy, which has hosted hundreds of thousands of migrants rescued at sea in recent years.

Malta then angrily rejected Salvini's badertion Saturday evening, Spain agreed to let the Open Arms dock in Barcelona, ​​where is based the humanitarian aid group that operates the ship, Proactiva Open Arms, The Spanish Government said:

The Open Arms and his companion, the Astral, will probably need four days to reach Barcelona, ​​said the captain of the Astral, Riccardo Gatti.

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While European politicians argue over arms were jubilant – jumping, chanting and hugging their rescuers.

Krisley's tensions melted when he was allowed to sit for a few minutes on the captain's seat. With sparkling eyes, the only child among the migrants smiled shyly after the rescue team called him "captain".

For months, his family had been living in Libya, while they were waiting for their chance to cross the Mediterranean. Her mother, Judith Dokouada, said that she had never left the shelter for fear of being kidnapped or sold as a slave, a fate that many African migrants have talked to defenders of. human rights

. They kill people, they beat people, they rape women, they kill boys, "says Dokouada, 32." We do not have peace. "

She and her husband want to raise Krisley to a safer place, she expressed the hope that the family could apply for refugee status and settle in Spain.

Another survivor Bitcha Honoree, said he knew the risk he was taking when he boarded the boat in the middle of the night.A 39-year-old Cameroonian said he was sold twice as a slave. , kidnapped and tortured in Libya pending the chance to board a smuggler's boat.His brother sold his house to pay the ransom demanded by his captors in Libya, which is in "It is better to die than to continue being abused," he said.

The US Refugee Agency says 1,137 migrants have died in the Mediterranean this year. And that does not include the 100 missing and dreaded migrants who died at sea on Friday. Libyan coast ge

A few hours after the rescue of the Open Arms on Saturday, Salvini said that the Spanish rescue boat "may forget to arrive in an Italian boat" Stop spreading incorrect news, causing Malta without reason, "tweeted the Maltese Minister of the Interior Michael Farrugia, saying that the small Italian island of Lampedusa, south of Sicily, was closer.

Although the number of migrants arriving in Europe is significantly decreasing this year from 2017, migration problems have aggravated the political divisions in the European Union, fueled in part by the demands of the anti-nationalist parties. -migrants. Saturday between the two coalition parties in the new populist government of Italy on Salvini 's harsh approach. Roberto Fico, a prominent member of the 5-star Movement, the lead partner of the ruling coalition in Italy, told reporters after inspecting a migrant reception center in Sicily: "I will not close ports."

and congratulated the ships of humanitarian aid for having done an "extraordinary job" in the Mediterranean.

Salvini on Saturday maintained on Twitter that the Open Arms had attacked the migrants before a Libyan boat in the Libyan search and rescue area could intervene

. But the captain of Open Arms said he informed the Rome-based Maritime Rescue Coordination Center about the migrants and was instructed to call the Libyan maritime authorities, who did not respond. The captain said that officials in Rome then told him that it was up to him to decide whether to proceed with the rescue. "I made the decision to save these human beings," Captain Marco Martinez told an Associated Press reporter. The AP reporter saw a Libyan Coast Guard ship approaching the Open Arms and the Astral while the rescue was underway, but he turned around and left by ordering the two boats. return to Spain. Also witnessed the rescue, four legislators of the European Parliament.