The Italian government has created a set of rules to regulate how rescue groups save endangered migrant boats in the Mediterranean, in order to mitigate alleged human trafficking. The rescue organizations are torn over the new measures with five groups having refused to sign up to the code of conduct on Monday and others on board.
The Italian government worries that the work of NGO organizations are assisting human traffickers who accompany the migrants to Europe from North Africa. The traffickers often abandon the migrants in the Mediterranean Sea to die and rescue organizations then pick them up. Italy wants to prevent collusion between the organizations and the traffickers.
The Italian Interior Ministry argue that the NGOs that who refused to sign the document had positioned themselves "outside the organized system of sea rescues, with all the concrete consequences it can have."
Over the last weeks NGOs have been negotiating with the Italian government over the code of conduct. Monday was the deadline for signatures on the document.
NGO organizations have struck back and believe that the the regulations treat them as if they are criminals. The code of conduct requires rescue ships to operate with an Italian police official on board. It also makes transferring migrants from smaller rescue vessels to larger ones a more difficult process.
"We are doctors, not policemen" Tommaso Fabbri, head of Doctor without Borders (MSF), Italy mission said about not signing the code of conduct. "We will continue to carry out rescue operations without changing anything."
"Based on our principles, we could not sign," Titus Molkenbaur of German organization Jugend Rettet said. "However we will continue to conduct rescues and will refer to maritime law."
Another German organization, Save the Children, signed the document. "We would not have signed if even one single point would have comprised our effectiveness. This is not the case, not one single point of the code will hinder our activities," Valerio Neri, the Italy director of the organization, stated.
On Tuesday, the European Commission had praised the fact that some of the NGOs signed the document and called for the "biggest number" possible to sign up. The Commission also added that NGOs that do not sign onto the document might not be guaranteed to take rescued migrants to Italian ports.
InfoMigrants with dpa, AFP and ANSA