Italy and Malta ignore 60 immigrants saved by a Spanish NGO

Rome .- The Spanish NGO Proactiva today rescued 60 immigrants in the central Mediterranean and is waiting for permission to disembark in a safe harbor after Italy and Malta , the nearest coasts, reaffirmed their decision not to host humanitarian ships.

The rescue took place around 11:00 am (local time) in international waters off Libya, when two ships from Proactiva, Astral and Open Arms they spotted an inflatable raft in which many immigrants, including children, were gathered, Efe reported.

In total there were sixty: eight Palestinians, eight from South Sudan, three from Mali, five from Syria, Burkina Faso, another from Ivory Coast, four Eritreans, eight Egyptians, three from the Central African Republic, two from Cameroon, two from Ethiopia, six from Libya, eight from Bangladesh and one from Guinea.

One of the organization's spokespersons, Laura Lanuza, said that the ship contacted the rescue coordination centers of Italy and Malta, who refused landing, who maintain contact with Spain for a port to be assigned to them.

However, he said, there is currently no information on where ships that have traveled north of the Mediterranean will land while awaiting instructions.

Again, as in the past cases of Aquarius or Lifeline it will not be Italy that will receive them.

Interior Minister, the far right Matteo Salvini, said on Facebook that Proactiva's ships "may forget to reach an Italian port" after having accused the NGO of interference in an operation that they could have executed the Libyan coastguard.

"The ship Open Arms of a Spanish NGO with the Spanish flag, was recently rushed by a boat and, before a Libyan boat intervened in the area, is eager to ship to 50 immigrants "he said.

The new minister, very critical of the NGOs, which he accuses of fomenting irregular immigration which enriches the mafias of the failing Libyan state, recommends put an end to this problem: "fewer people leave, fewer people die" he said.

And he again ignored his reception, noting that the boat was in the search and rescue area (SAR) of Libya and that the nearest port was Malta. However Malta also closed its ports to NGOs after the case of the ship of the German organization Lifeline which allowed access last Wednesday to 233 immigrants after six days drifting on the high seas because of the iron refusal of Italy.

For this reason, the Minister of the Interior and National Security of Malta, Michael Farrugia, ran up against the statements of his Italian counterpart and asked him to "stop spreading inaccurate information. involving Malta without reason ".

To refute Salvini, Labor Farrugia posted on his Twitter account a map to "clarify" that Proactiva's rescue occurred between Libya and the Italian island of Lampedusa, being the safest and most not the Maltese archipelago

In any case, Proactiva was the target of the measures of the new Italian government of the Five-Star Movement and the League and the leader of this last xenophobic training, Salvini, advanced that will also deny the supply of NGO ships.

The Minister of Infrastructure, Danilo Toninelli, of the Five Stars, ordered Friday the ban on access to an Italian port to the ship Open Arms of Proactiva "for reasons of 39, ordre public ", After rectification, the measure was initially directed to the other ship, the Astral.

In this last trip the Spanish deputies Miguel Urbán, of Podemos; Javier López, Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE); Ana Miranda, from the Nationalist Galician Bloc, and the Italian Eleonora Forenza, from the Communist Refoundation, witnesses of what is happening in the Mediterranean.

Meanwhile, on the continent, Salvini, whose political boom derives in large part from his severe criticism of the management of the migratory flow, maintains this impulse in order to cut the arrivals of Libya, ] country with which the former center-left government has concluded agreements for the same purpose.

However, at that time the landings of immigrants in the country dropped dramatically after years of massive influxes : until now this year, until June 28, It welcomed 16,566 immigrants, 79.07% less than in the same period of 2017, according to the Interior.