An international charity which has saved thousands of migrants in the Mediterranean Sea says it will stop using its save boat becainclude novel Italian laws “have made it impossible to progress”.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) – also understandn as Doctors Without Borders – has been using the Geo Barents vessel since June 2021 on a succession of operations.
Last year, Sky News was on board when its crew saved more than 600 people who had been crammed together on an ancigo in fishing boat.
It was the biggest save the charity had carried out and our tell prompted recent argue about hazardous migration routes among politicians in the UK and apass the EU.
A lesser injured man pictured last year being lifted onto the vessel with a sling
The drop decks of the Geo Barents packed with more than 600 people complying a save in 2023
The Mediterranean Sea is pondered the most hazardous migrant route in the world.
The charity shelp the Geo Barents had saved a total of 12,675 people during 190 operations. It has also recovered 24 bodies and aided in the deinhabitry of a baby.
However, MSF shelp Italian law, modernized last year, had now made it impossible to function big save vessels.
The legislation reinnervouss the rights of non-regulatemental organisations (NGOs) in running save operations.
The rules grasp a needment for boats to return to port as soon as a individual save has been carry outed, ponderless of how many people were bcimpolitet to protectedty.
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Charities have conserveed that a vessel the size of Geo Barents, which can accommodate around 600 people, should not be mandated to return if it has only saved a handful of people.
There has also been a lengthy-running dispute between NGOs about which port they should include when transporting saved migrants to Italy.
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Rather than docking at the proximateest port, NGO boats are routinely tancigo in to produce lengthy journeys to distant ports.
When Sky News was filming on the Geo Barents, we saw how the boat, packed to capacity with people, was tancigo in to go past a series of ports in order to get to Bari.
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The Italian regulatement has levied a succession of penalties on the Geo Barents for baccomplishes of its rules, forcing the vessel to stay in port for 160 days. It has also fined MSF for ignoring the regulations.
Italian politicians have accincluded save charities of encouraging migrants to try to get to Italy, claiming that they experience embancigo inened to danger the journey becainclude they foresee to be saved.
Giorgia Meloni promised a much harder approach to irstandard migration when she was elected prime minister two years ago, and has already shrinkd the rights of migrants arriving in the country.
She has also signed a deal that permits for migrants arriving in Italy to be transferred to Albania while their claims are being processed.
Ms Meloni shelp Italy was now “a model to comply” for other countries struggling with the political dispute of migration.
MSF shelp it would “be back as soon as possible” to carry out further search and save ignoreions in the Mediterranean region, but shelp it was “unthelp” to progress operating the Geo Barents.
