Malta, Italy lock horns over migrant rescue procedures
AFM again supplies food, water and lifejackets to Eritreans on dinghy
Karl Stagno-Navarra
Malta and Italy have locked horns over rescue procedures of migrants at sea, after another a group of 60 Eritreans was intercepted yesterday by a Maltese patrol boat and “escorted” towards the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Armed Forces personnel aboard patrol craft P51 once again supplied food, water and life jackets to the migrants, who were intercepted while navigating towards Lampedusa, and who AFM sources claim insisted not to be diverted to Malta.
However this procedure was again highly criticised by the Italian government, which is accusing Malta of absconding from its international obligations and passing migrants on to Italy.
Both the Maltese and the Italian patrol boats filmed and documented the moment when the migrants reached Italian waters.
The situation is reminiscent of last Thursday’s controversial rescue by the Italians of five Eritrean migrants who claim to have been at sea for 20 days. The survivors claimed that a Maltese patrol boat had earlier intercepted them, but refused to take them in.
The same migrants also claimed to a further 75 passengers on the same dinghy, all Eritreans, had already died at sea.
This allegation was however hotly denied by both the Maltese government and the AFM, who stressed the migrants themselves refused to be taken to Malta. The authorities added that there was no clear evidence that the five migrants had been out at sea for so long, nor any convincing evidence indicating a human tragedy of proportions implied.
Nonetheless, a magisterial inquiry led by Renato di Natale and Santo Fornasier in Agrigento is tilting towards the possible indictment of the AFM crew aboard patrol craft P61 for alleged “rescue omission” and “voluntary homicide”.
Though no formal charges have been issued yet, with investigations so far pointing towards ‘ignoti’ – the Italian legal term for unknown perpetrators – foreign minister Tonio Borg and home affairs minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici were swift to announce on Saturday that the Maltese authorities are willing to cooperate with “any investigation.”
Italy’s President Giorgio Napolitano is reported to have asked his Home Affairs minister Roberto Maroni to keep him informed about the developments in the investigations being carried out in Agrigento, while the centre-left Opposition, led by Dario Franceshini, took the Maltese government to task by insisting that “all must be fought on the juridical front to expose the shame of a State that blatantly ignores its international responsibilities.”
Franceschini yesterday visited two of the five Eritrean survivors who are currently being held in the Vincenzo Cervello Hospital in Palermo.
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