Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

IMMIGRATION

Ship’s captain threatens to bring stranded migrants to Italy to end limbo

The captain of the Sea Watch 3 charity rescue vessel threatened on Tuesday to enter Italian waters illegally to bring 42 migrants to shore after 13 days in limbo at sea.

Published: 25 June 2019 16:11 CEST
Ship's captain threatens to bring stranded migrants to Italy to end limbo
The Sea Watch 3 has been waiting off Italy for more than ten days. File photo: Federico Scoppa/AFP

“I will enter Italian waters and bring them to safety on Lampedusa,” Carola Rackete said in an interview with La Repubblica daily, in reference to the island off Italy's southern tip.

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has banned the Dutch-flagged vessel from approaching under a “closed ports” policy, which has seen migrants repeatedly left in limbo at sea.

READ ALSO: More than 40 people left in limbo on rescue boat off Italy


Rescued people aboard the Sea Watch 3 in January 2019. Photo: Federico Scoppa/AFP

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg on Tuesday declined to intervene but called on Italy to “continue to provide all necessary assistance” to vulnerable migrants.

The German NGO Sea-Watch had asked the ECHR to impose “interim measures” on Italy, saying the court could ask Rome to take urgent steps to resolve the standoff in order to “prevent serious and irremediable violations of human rights”. 

Salvini said Tuesday the charity vessel could “stay there until Christmas and New Year” but would never be allowed in.

Of the 53 migrants initially rescued by the Sea Watch 3 off Libya on June 12th, Italy took in 11 vulnerable people.

READ ALSO: 

On Lampedusa, where Salvini's anti-immigration League won 45 percent in May's European elections, a priest has camped out in the street to demand those onboard — including three minors — be allowed to disembark.

Dozens of German cities have said they are ready to welcome them, and the Bishop of Turin, Cesare Noviglia, said Monday his diocese would be willing to take them in.

“We can't hold on any longer. It's like we're in a prison because we are deprived of everything. Help us, think of us,” one migrant from the Ivory Coast said in a video broadcast by Sea Watch.

In January, 32 migrants rescued by the vessel were stranded on board for 18 days before they were allowed to disembark in Malta thanks to a distribution deal made between several European countries. 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

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.

SHOW COMMENTS