The refugee crisis in the Mediterranean Sea is a drama so close that the European Union can neither ignore nor deny it. Libyan traffickers force migrants onto rubber dinghies or precarious boats, which will end up at the bottom of the sea less than six hours later or in the hands of the Libyan Coast Guard, if humanitarian banks don’t arrive to pick them up and save their lives.
They are waiting for you in Libya real concentration camps, where there are trafficking in human beings, sales into slavery, systematic rape and torture, regardless of gender, as humanitarian organizations and the press denounce.
The German Humanity 1, the Ocean Viking and the Norwegian Geo Barents of the French NGO Médecins Sans Frontières are the ones who rescue the shipwrecked in the middle of the sea, who place the first life jackets for them, who take care of the children born in hell on their way to asylum, their mothers, unaccompanied minors and migrants, without asking for reasons.
They are shipwrecked and international law requires us to protect them and disembark them at the first safe port.
The problem begins in front of the “Fortress Europe”. The Mediterranean countries do not want to receive more migrants. Until now, Europe had not implemented a solidarity distribution system, different from the legalization promoted in 2015 by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Diplomatic crisis and drifting migrants
The neo-fascist government change in Italy has stirred up the same dramas that Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has generated to prevent them from entering Italian ports. The Ocean Viking vessel was forced to land at the French military port of Toulon on Friday morning after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni refused to allow non-mothers and children to disembark in Sicily. First major European crisis with Italyduring the war between Russia and Ukraine.
“Exceptionally” the migrants landed in France and before being distributed in nine European countries. They are all housed and working at a campsite in Hyeres on the French Riviera, which is not considered French territory but rather a waiting area.
Argentine economist Juan Matías Gil is the head of mission of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) humanitarian operation on the vessel in the Geo Barents in the Mediterranean Sea. Born in Argentina, he studied economics at the University of Buenos Aires and then did a Masters in Human Rights and Conflict Management in Italy.
With MSF, he has traveled to South Sudan, Cameroon, Yemen, Congo, the Balkans, India, Jordan and Syria, in his 9 years with the organisation. him and his team rescued 572 migrants in the Mediterranean Sea on the vessel Geo Barents, which were taken to the Italian port of Catania over the weekend. and talked to clarion.
-Why did you disembark in the Italian port of Catania and why is the Ocean Viking disembarking right now at the French military base in Toulon? What is the difference?
-Ships have undergone the manipulation and politicization of international laws which are very clear, which say that a rescue ends with the disembarkation in the safest place and closest to the emergency at sea. In this case it was Malta or Italy. We continue to push to enforce these laws. We have finally managed to disembark the survivors of seven rescue operations involving 572 people in Sicily. But with a great political debate on an issue that is simply an obligation of the signatory states of these international conventions.
-But the Ocean Viking ones didn’t land there.
-Ocean Viking, with the organization that manages it, has made a different decision. I guess it was a result of desperation from waiting two weeks for a resolution in Italy and when she didn’t arrive, she continued sailing to the next coastal state.
-How did you convince Italy, which has a new far-right government, to allow more than 500 migrants to disembark in its port?
-First, I’m not French. We are an organization born in France. But there is no correlation between the identity of the organization and the country where the survivors of the emergencies at sea have landed. A very easy example: if I’m Argentinian, I’m in Italy right now, but I have an accident on the road, an ambulance comes to get me. They don’t take me to a hospital in Argentina, they take me to the nearest hospital. Well, the same logic and consistency apply to emergencies at sea. Of course, always governed by clear rules. So it doesn’t matter who the rescuer is, it doesn’t matter who the saved is. Nationality is the individual condition of each of them. They are disembarked at the nearest available location to provide assistance as needs arise. And this has been accepted by Italy.
But it wasn’t easy…
– He accepted it with the strength to push to make them respect their obligations and with the rights of the survivors. In this case, the two closest states were Malta and Italy. Malta has denied disembarkation to survivors. So we headed to the nearest state with reasonable sailing, because with 600 people on board, obviously sailing any further would have put people and people’s lives in great danger.
-Now, you have to keep 600 people on a ship on deck?
-Yup. Fortunately, on our ship we have a closed deck, where conditions are very good. But a ship is just a place of transit. When these emergencies happen at sea, a boat should only have the function of getting you to a safe place as quickly as possible. By itself, no ship is ready to pick up such a large number of survivors at sea. So the most logical thing is, once that happens, that the Maritime Coordination Center takes responsibility for disembarking immediately. So the law provides.
Castaways and survivors
-All these 500 people survived various shipwrecks, how did you find them?
-Seven different save operations and a quick four save operation. When we were already pulling them away from the area, we found ourselves in two dangerous situations, with two ships in distress, which could end in certain death if we weren’t there. And when we were heading to the port to disembark, we were faced with a very similar situation. The ship’s captain’s obligation is to rescue them and transport them to a port to be disembarked.
-How long did it take to negotiate the landing?
Well, basically two weeks. Two weeks that needlessly prolonged people’s suffering.
more dead
-But at the same time, in two weeks it was not possible to save many who must have died at sea.
-Exactly. All the time where we are stuck and our capacity to operate is reduced is also the time that other people do not have. They lose the chance to be saved. They may disappear, die at sea or be rescued by a Libyan coast guard, who deport them to a country where their lives are in danger, where they are faced with an organized pattern of systematic violence, in violation of all human rights conventions human, torture, kidnapping for extortion, rape, sale of people. It is widely documented and demonstrated by international organizations, non-governmental organizations or the United Nations and journalists.
“All the time where we’re stuck and our operational capacity shrinks is time that other people don’t have. They lose the possibility of being rescued. They may disappear, die at sea or be rescued by a Libyan coast guard, who deport them to a country where their lives are in danger.”
-The people you landed, what fate do they have? That is, does Italy collect them, redistribute them in Europe or are they left to themselves?
-Given the political debate of these days in Europe, it is necessary to separate what is the reception and reception and integration of people arriving on European territory and what happens at sea. They are separate problems. Anyone at sea in danger is taken to a safe port. From there, the process of evaluating the legal and physical and mental character of people passes under the responsibility of the authorities, in this case the Prefecture, which belongs to the Ministry of the Interior, which carries out the individual evaluation of each person and should insert them into a receiving system.
-And what is the difference between you and the Ocean Viking, which finally docked at the military port of Toulon on Friday morning?
-We all operate under the same legal framework. They made a decision, surely the fruit and consequence of the situation they had on board. The hope of being able to land faster than continuing to wait in port. Of course it has its consequences, which go against what maritime law dictates. But I guess they did it given the humanitarian conditions on board and with the best interests of the people in mind.
-How many other humanitarian ships are in the Mediterranean rescuing migrants at the moment we are talking about?
-There is no operational ship and we are already starting, as happened a few years ago in this context, to have jobs to operate. So we have a vessel in administrative detention, after some inspection, and we have other vessels – there are only three, four vessels including ours – that have just disembarked people and another two or three that are preparing to sail as soon as possible.
Paris, correspondent
B. C
Source: Clarin
