For Italy, migrants must be stopped in Libya or left at sea: politics and human rights adrift

There is a ‘dirty job’ to be done in Libya: preventing, by any means, migrants from reaching Italy. That is why the wicked pact, the Memorandum of Understanding with Libya, put into practice, on 2 February 2017, in such a way as not even to need a parliamentary passage, will be renewed, as of 2 February next, for another three years. Is there, perhaps, the dream of being able to set up hotspots on Libyan soil where ‘genuine asylum seekers’ could be selected to be received in Europe, and people not deemed worthy of protection who would remain in Libya or, worse still, with joint operations, would be sent back to the countries from which they fled, making the Libyans do the worst work?

Photo: The German NGO ship ‘Sos Humanity’ during a rescue operation
https://www.avvenire.it/attualita’

The fate of the people, including babies, children, minors, pregnant women, who migrate across the Mediterranean routes these days seems to be to remain ‘soaking’ on the ships of civil organisations that do not give up on rescuing those fleeing persecution, famine, war, and natural disasters resulting from the consequences of accelerating climate change.

In reality, those who escape controls embark by the means we know and with the dramatic results that are before everyone’s eyes, in general indifference perhaps also due to a painful individual and collective impotence.

The invitation launched by this site
#facciamoladifferenzacoimigranti

is ever more urgent, especially in the face of the current government regulations that seek to “circumvent the Dublin Treaty, while there are already three ships close to Italian territorial waters seeking shelter from the bad weather and almost a thousand migrants in great distress” (Source: Maurizio Molinari’s newsletter – La Repubblica).

Photo: https://www.avvenire.it/attualita/

According to the Italian government, the request for international protection will have to be made on board humanitarian ships in order to make the flag state of the rescuing NGO responsible for managing the rescued migrants.

Unacceptable European tug-of-war over the reception of migrants
Crushing the dignity – and in some cases the lives – of people
#facciamoladifferenzacoimigranti