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IMMIGRATION

Italy holds migrant rescue ship as hundreds land

Italian authorities held a migrant rescue boat for 12 hours after it brought more than 230 people to a port in south western Italy following a four-day ordeal on the high seas, an NGO said on Sunday.

Published: 10 June 2018 15:32 CEST
Italy holds migrant rescue ship as hundreds land
Migrants rescued by Sea-Watch 3 in November 2017. Photo: Alessio Paduano/AFP

German NGO Sea-Watch said in a statement that their boat Sea-Watch 3 was held until gone midnight on Saturday after arriving at the port at Reggio Calabria with 232 people onboard.

Italian police questioned the boat captain for more than four hours, according to the NGO, and journalists travelling on the vessel were asked to hand over video footage of the rescue operation, which took place on June 5th.

“The political attacks against us are not only endangering us, but those in maritime distress,” the NGO tweeted. “After 12 hours stuck in port, without a comprehensible reason given by the authorities, while there were 6 SAR-Cases on the Mediterranean Sea, we finally set sails to SAR.”

SAR stands for search and rescue operations.

Sea-Watch said police also questioned some of the rescued migrants from the boat. After being processed by the authorities they are likely to end up in migrant reception centres.

The holding of the boat comes after Italy's new anti-immigrant government pledged to slow down landings and speed up expulsions of migrants illegally in the country.

“If anyone thinks I won't move a muscle while we have another summer of landings, landings and more landings, well that's not what i'm going to do,” said new Interior Minster Matteo Salvini from the far-right League party on Saturday.

Sea-Watch said it had requested help from the coastguard in Malta to send boats to aid the rescue mission last week but Malta refused.

Salvini has previously lambasted neighbouring Malta for not doing more to help deal with would-be asylum seekers — a charge Malta has denied.

While Sea-Watch 3 was being held in Reggio Calabria, fellow NGO SOS Mediterranee rescued 629 people in six separate night-time operations in the Mediterranean.

The French organisation said that of those saved and brought on board its ship Aquarius on Saturday night, 123 are unaccompanied minors, 11 are small children and seven are pregnant women.

They are currently heading north in search of a secure port at which to dock. 

CRIME

Germany mulls expulsions to Afghanistan after knife attack

Germany said Tuesday it was considering allowing deportations to Afghanistan, after an asylum seeker from the country injured five and killed a police officer in a knife attack.

Published: 4 June 2024 14:50 CEST
Germany mulls expulsions to Afghanistan after knife attack

Officials had been carrying out an “intensive review for several months… to allow the deportation of serious criminals and dangerous individuals to Afghanistan”, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told journalists.

“It is clear to me that people who pose a potential threat to Germany’s security must be deported quickly,” Faeser said.

“That is why we are doing everything possible to find ways to deport criminals and dangerous people to both Syria and Afghanistan,” she said.

Deportations to Afghanistan from Germany have been completely stopped since the Taliban retook power in 2021.

But a debate over resuming expulsions has resurged after a 25-year-old Afghan was accused of attacking people with a knife at an anti-Islam rally in the western city of Mannheim on Friday.

A police officer, 29, died on Sunday after being repeatedly stabbed as he tried to intervene in the attack.

Five people taking part in a rally organised by Pax Europa, a campaign group against radical Islam, were also wounded.

Friday’s brutal attack has inflamed a public debate over immigration in the run up to European elections and prompted calls to expand efforts to expel criminals.

READ ALSO: Tensions high in Mannheim after knife attack claims life of policeman

The suspect, named in the media as Sulaiman Ataee, came to Germany as a refugee in March 2013, according to reports.

Ataee, who arrived in the country with his brother at the age of only 14, was initially refused asylum but was not deported because of his age, according to German daily Bild.

Ataee subsequently went to school in Germany, and married a German woman of Turkish origin in 2019, with whom he has two children, according to the Spiegel weekly.

Per the reports, Ataee was not seen by authorities as a risk and did not appear to neighbours at his home in Heppenheim as an extremist.

Anti-terrorism prosecutors on Monday took over the investigation into the incident, as they looked to establish a motive.

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