Italy wants to extend migrant rescue curbs to navy ships

The right-wing interior minister who closed Italy’s ports to those aid groups that rescue migrants in the Mediterranean says that he wants to extend the prohibition to foreign navy ships.

Matteo Salvini says he would bring up Italy’s desire to keep navy ships carrying rescued migrants from its ports when European Union interior ministers meet this week in Austria. Salvini made the statement on Facebook after the Irish navy ship Samuel Beckett arrived in the Sicilian port of Messina with 106 migrants, after participating in an EU-sponsored mission.

“Unfortunately, Italian governments over the past five years have signed agreements (in exchange for what?) so that all these ships disembark immigrants in Italy,” Salvini wrote. “With our government, the music has changed and will change.”

The EU’s border control force, Frontex, operates a search-and-rescue operation in the Mediterranean using air and sea resources contributed from a variety of countries. Italy’s coast guard coordinates the rescues and tells Frontex ships where to disembark.

Salvini’s anti-migrant League party is governing Italy in a coalition with the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement. Since the new government took office on June 1, it has launched a major crackdown on migration while the number of people embarking for Europe from Libya is much lower than in previous years.

By closing Italy’s ports to boats operated by humanitarian groups, Salvini has forced other EU countries to take in rescued migrants.

— AP