Spanish aid group fears migrant trafficking charges in Italy
In this July 13, 2017 photo, migrants stand on the deck of the Spanish NGO's Proactiva Open Arms vessel at harbor at Porto Empedocle in the southern Italian island of Sicily. The Italian news agency ANSA says the NGO’s migrant rescue ship has been put under sequester by prosecutors’ orders, Sunday, March 18, 2018, in Pozzallo port, Sicily, where, a day earlier, the vessel brought 216 migrants it had rescued last week in the Mediterranean north of Libya. (Montana/ANSA via AP)
BARCELONA — The head of a Spanish aid group said yesterday he fears human trafficking charges may be brought against his staff after they refused to hand over a group of rescued migrants to the Libyan coast guard during a tense high-seas standoff and then took them to Italy.
Proactiva Open Arms founder and director Oscar Camps said Italy has impounded his organization's rescue vessel Open Arms and he is worried the ship might not be returned.
"This is no joke," Camps told a news conference in Barcelona where his organization is based.
The case comes amid reluctance in Europe to take any more immigrants from North Africa and international efforts to stem the migrant flow across the Mediterranean.
The rescue vessel was sequestered Sunday in the Sicilian port of Pozzallo. Italian authorities were investigating the rescue group for suspected criminal association and aiding illegal immigration.
Proactiva said the investigation stems from its refusal last Thursday to hand over to Libya's coast guard 218 migrants it had just saved in international waters north of Libya, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) from Europe.
Camps said that as the Libyan coast guard approached, some migrants panicked and began screaming and jumped from their boat into the sea. The Libyan coast guard was "very aggressive" toward the Open Arms crew, Camps said, adding that his organization had "a legal duty" to save the migrants.
Anabel Montes, speaking by videoconference from the Open Arms vessel in Italy, said it wasn't the first time the crew had had problems with the Libyan coast guard, "but we had never reached such an extreme situation like this one in which they were threatening us, saying that they were going to kill us."
The crew spent three hours negotiating with the Libyans, Camps said. In the meantime, a vessel sent by Maltese authorities evacuated a critically ill 3-month-old baby and its mother.
Camps said the crew contacted the Spanish and Italian navies but got no help, and had to wait 48 hours for permission to enter an Italian port.
Open Arms brought the migrants to Pozzallo on Saturday.
Of the vessel's 19 crew members, three are remaining in Italy in order to testify in the case but the rest are heading back to Spain, Camps said.
- Latest
- Trending
