“If it were Swiss, you wouldn’t hesitate for a second”

The new Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (45) breaks loose: rescue ships with migrants are no longer allowed to go ashore. There are currently 985 people rescued on various ships in the Mediterranean, some of whom are in urgent need of assistance. Stocks are running out and the weather is getting worse.

One of the rescue ships is the “Ocean Viking”, which is currently sailing southwest of Sicily. On board are 234 migrants who were rescued from six boats in distress between October 22 and 26 and are now being fed and cared for by the crew.

Twelve cancellations

The former SRG director and editor-in-chief of the newspapers “Tages-Anzeiger” and “Die Zeit”, Roger de Weck (69), is a board member of the humanitarian organization SOS Méditerranée Schweiz, which operates the “Ocean Viking”. He’s worried. “It was already difficult under the previous governments of Italy to land rescued people. In fact, under the new government, it has become extremely difficult,” he told Blick.

The rescue vessel has now requested permission 12 times to call at a port in Italy or Malta. There was always a rejection.

On the website of SOS Méditerranée Switzerland, general manager Caroline Abu Sa’Da (43) writes: “It would be a manifestation of a dramatic failure of the EU and associated states as survivors as hostages on ships are held in political debates.”

Meloni fights smugglers

When she took office on October 22, the right-wing Italian prime minister made her position clear: “This government wants to embark on a path that has so far hardly been trodden: stop illegal departures and finally end illegal human trafficking in the Mediterranean.”

She doesn’t want to talk about the right to asylum for those fleeing executions, Meloni said. They just want to prevent smugglers from deciding who can come to Italy.

Her solution: she wants to set up centers in North Africa in collaboration with the local authorities. Here international organizations should check which migrants are entitled to asylum and would be transported to Europe.

More than 36,000 people rescued

Allegations continue to come in that smugglers would inform rescue organizations at sea when and where migrant boats would depart. Tugs confirm this. But Roger de Weck says: “Scientific studies and experience have long disproved that the presence of rescue ships at sea invites people to flee across the sea. Without rescuers, there are simply more deaths. And there is not the slightest cooperation with smugglers.”

Roger de Weck emphasizes that SOS Méditerranée has saved more than 36,000 lives since it was founded seven years ago. “We don’t get involved in politics, we save people,” he says. And he adds: “If the people in need were Swiss, you wouldn’t hesitate for a second to save them. Why should people behave differently towards people of other nationalities?”

On Thursday afternoon, SOS Méditerranée called on the French, Spanish and Greek maritime authorities and other countries to support the rescue ships and allow immediate embarkation in a safe place. The organization describes the blockade at sea not only as “a disgrace, but also a flagrant violation of international maritime and humanitarian law”.