The private rescue ship is no longer scheduled to leave the port of Reggio Calabria off Sicily for the time being. At the weekend, the “Sea-Eye 4” picked up almost 150 people in the Mediterranean.
Italy does not want to allow a ship belonging to the private German aid organization Sea-Eye to leave the port for two months after it arrived with more than 140 boat refugees. The authorities detained the “Sea-Eye” in the port of the southern Italian city of Reggio Calabria for 60 days, as both sides announced.
The authorities justified this by saying that the helpers in the Mediterranean took refugees on board even though Libya’s coast guard was ready to take them in. The aid organization said such action would have violated international law.
The “Sea-Eye 4” arrived on Sunday after a two and a half week mission in the city on the strait between Sicily and the Italian mainland with a total of 145 migrants on board. According to a spokesman, most of the migrants come from Syria and Somalia. They were picked up from boats that had made the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe from Africa. Deadly disasters occur again and again during the crossing in boats that are often barely seaworthy.
Source: Stern
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