MADRID, 8 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The 89 migrants and refugees waiting on board the ship ‘Rise Above’, of the NGO Mission Lifeline, have been able to disembark this Tuesday in the Italian port of Reggio Calabria, although there are still several hundred more people waiting for similar permits in other boats.
The organization has celebrated the total disembarkation on its social networks, after the Italian authorities only authorized the evacuation of six people for medical reasons. All of these migrants had been rescued in the central Mediterranean area, after leaving from North Africa.
Mission Lifeline, Doctors Without Borders, SOS Mediterranée and SOS Humanity have suffered in recent days the consequences of the change of government in Italy, now less inclined to allow the work of rescue NGOs and the disembarkation of migrants, despite the fact that both these organizations such as the UN have urged to put the well-being of people above political considerations.
Human Rights Watch researcher Giulia Tranchina has urged in a statement to guarantee unimpeded disembarkation to also examine the protection needs of these migrants. “Leaving people trapped on ships or stranded at sea is not serious immigration policy: it is simply inhumane and illegal theater,” she has sentenced.
HRW, however, has recognized the need for a European solidarity mechanism and a common asylum system, something that the countries of southern Europe have been demanding for years. Tranchina has also advocated the reactivation of the EU rescue system in the Mediterranean, to the extent that the full responsibility for saving lives now falls on the activity of NGOs.
