"Ocean Viking rescued 71 persons from a severely overcrowded rubber boat taking water in the Libyan search and rescue region," read a message on the X page (formerly known as Twitter) from the private rescue organization SOS Mediterranee on Monday (January 29).

The boat had first been spotted by the reconnaissance plane Seabird 1, according to SOS Mediterranee. Among those brought on board the Ocean Viking are five woman, including one who is pregnant, and 16 unaccompanied minors.

The Italian rescue coordination center has directed the crew of the Ocean Viking towards the Tuscan port of Livorno on Italy's west coast. The crew of the ship pointed out in their X thread that from the point of rescue, Livorno was over 1,000 kilometers away and the weather was due to worsen over the next few days.

Far-away ports -- Italian government policy

Advocated by the Italian government since early in 2023, the policy of ordering rescue ships to sail much further away before disembarking those rescued appears to be continuing. The policy is meant to prevent rescue ships from carrying out multiple rescues until they are full to capacity and then heading for a nearby port.

The policy was also, according to the Italian government, meant to prevent the overcrowding of disembarkations in the south of Italy, which is poorer and has worse infrastructure than the north of the country.

Despite the new rules, over 158,000 migrants reached Italy's shores last year. SOS Mediterranee points out that by sending the private rescue ships to ports that require several days sailing "empties the area of vital assets."

What they don't say, but is obvious from arrival statistics, is the fact the policy puts the onus of rescue on the Italian coast guard and commercial boats. In fact, the majority of rescues in the central Mediterranean area are carried out by the Italian coast guard.

Dangers of the Mediterranean route

Since 2016, the organization SOS Mediterranee has rescued more than 39,000 people in the Mediterranean. Last year, reports the French news agency Agence France Presse (AFP), citing figures from the UN Migration Agency IOM’s Missing Migrants project, more than 3,000 people were reported missing, presumed dead while attempting to cross the Mediterranean.

Since the beginning of January 2024, 103 people have already been reported missing.

At the beginning of the year, Ocean Viking was impounded by the Italian government. It was, according to the news agency Associated Press (AP) "accused of having deviated from its assigned route to a port in Bari."

Its alleged infringement of Italian rules took place on December 27, when the crew responded to a civilian aircraft’s report of a boat in distress about 15 nautical miles from its route, reported AP.

Alessandro Porro, a senior rescuer and president of SOS Mediterranée’s Italy operation told AP: "We are accused of not having followed the orders of the Italian coast guard, and the only fault we have is that of having followed the law of the sea."

'We know this is a tactic'

Despite the detour, the ship arrived in Bari on schedule on December 30, but then received a 20-day detention order and a €3,300 fine. The detention order expired last Friday and as soon as it was able, the ship set off for its current mission.

Another Ocean Viking rescuer told AP, "we know this is a tactic to try and stop our operation rather than something that is valid in some way. I find it painful to feel that humanity’s not on our side or that the authorities aren’t on our side, because it’s so obvious when you do this work that what we’re doing is the right thing to be doing."

A spokesperson for Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party told AP last week that "immigration is a state’s national competence, and we cannot allow private organizations to influence our migration policies with their policies."

With AFP and AP