• Friday, 09 August 2024
logo

Migrants disembark after stand-off as Italy's Salvini faces probe

Gulan Media August 26, 2018 News
Migrants disembark after stand-off as Italy's Salvini faces probe
Italy allowed all 150 migrants to leave a rescue ship that had been docked for five days at a Sicilian port amid a five-day stand-off between the Italian government and the EU. Italy's far-right interior minister is facing a probe over the incident.

Prosecutors in Sicily on Saturday opened an inquiry into Italy's far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini for "illegal confinement, illegal arrest and abuse of power", reports said, over his refusal to allow 150 rescued migrants off the Diciotti coastguard ship.

Authorities earlier allowed a dozen migrants to leave the Diciotti, where they have been stranded since the boat docked at the port of Catania in Sicily on Monday night.

Rome had blocked the migrants from stepping off the boat, leaving them trapped as Italy pushes other EU nations to take them in. Albania, which is not an EU member, was the only country to offer to host some of those on board the ship.

Their fate sparked a fresh immigration row between Italy's populist government and the EU, with Rome on Friday threatening to pull some of its funding for the bloc as a "compensatory measure" if it refuses to help.

Prosecutors in Sicily said that they were now investigating Salvini in connection with the migrants' plight. The minister earlier brushed aside reports of a broader inquiry into who was responsible saying late Friday that officials were following orders issued by "the director – that is to say, me".

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) called on EU member states to "urgently" provide places for those stranded on the ship.

"In the meantime, UNHCR urges Italian authorities to allow the immediate disembarkation of those on board," it said.

'Borders of Europe'

Migration is a hot-button issue in Italy, where hundreds of thousands of people have arrived since 2013, fleeing war, persecution and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Under EU rules people must seek asylum in their country of arrival, but Rome has increasingly barred boats from docking at its ports.

A high-level meeting of a dozen EU member states in Brussels on Friday failed to produce an immediate solution for the Diciotti migrants.

"The European Union has decided to turn its back on Italy once again," Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio wrote on his Facebook page.

"They want the €20 billion ($23 billion) paid by Italian citizens? Then let them demonstrate that they deserve it and that they are taking charge of a problem that we can no longer face alone. The borders of Italy are the borders of Europe," he added.

Brussels quickly hit back at Di Maio's "threats" on Friday.

EU figures for 2016 say Italy contributed just under €14 billion to the EU budget – less than one percent of its gross national income – while the bloc spent 11.6 billion euros in Italy.

Far-right boost

Salvini stopped the majority of the migrants disembarking from the Diciotti after they were rescued on August 15, but he allowed 27 unaccompanied minors off the boat on Wednesday.

Opinion polls suggest that Salvini's stance has boosted his far-right League party's approval rating to around 30 percent – a more than 10 point jump from its showing in March's election.

It is now level with the Five Star Movement with which it has governed Italy since early June.

According to Salvini's own ministry, migrant arrivals are more than 80 percent down on the same period last year, with just over 19,500 arriving up to August 23 compared to 98,000 in 2017.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
Top