Ravenna was identified as a safe port for the ship Humanity 1 to dock. The ship has 51 migrants on board, and its arrival is expected on August 28 in the morning.

The decision was communicated by the Italian Ministry of Interior to the Municipality in Emilia-Romagna on August 23, following the rescue of the migrants by the NGO ship.

Among the migrants, there are at least 10 unaccompanied minors.

This decision was not met favourably by the Mayor of Ravenna, Alessandro Barattoni, who recalled that this is the "24th ship of NGOs to arrive here in two and a half years" to dock in his city.

"The ship arriving will be the last one to dock in Ravenna until a national roundtable of the cities identified as having safe ports will be held in Rome. At this roundtable, the policies and choices of the coming years will be discussed," warned the mayor.

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'Ancona obtained fewer boat arrivals, for us this one will be the last'

Last Saturday, while speaking to the press, Barattoni, of the Democratic Party, reminded everyone how the Municipality of Ravenna had always cooperated with the Ministry and the Prefecture to assure the best logistic and organizational conditions during the boat arrivals, but at the same time it also always denounced the inhumanity and lack of coherence of the choices of the safe ports that are far from the sea rescue areas.

The Mayor underscored that now there was a new situation. "This week the Mayor of Ancona, of the Center-Right, another city that in these years had sheltered numerous boat arrivals of migrants (a bit less than Ravenna), first complained of an additional assignment and then received by the Meloni government, through the Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani, reassurance on the fact that additional boats would not dock in the Marche region," he stated.

"Many state that this is because in a few weeks the Marche region will hold elections and the Center-Right needs to give signs for fear of losing elections," continued Barattoni.

"I do not want to believe that someone could place election results before the lives of people, but I cannot help but notice that if this were true, this would automatically mean an increase in the number of ships directed to other ports identified as safe, such as ours," he stated.

For this reason, "to safeguard our Municipality, the Humanity 1 docking will be the last boat of an NGO in Ravenna until a national roundtable is held," with all the cities identified as safe ports, he concluded.

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Even Humanity 1 is against the choice of Ravenna as a port to dock

Even on board the Humanity 1 ship, there were many criticisms concerning the choice of this city for the docking.

"Once again, Italian authorities fail to allow those rescued the right to dock at a safe and nearby port! We were assigned the port of Ravenna, which is slightly more than 1.600 kilometers from the place where we rescued 51 persons, among them approximately 10 unaccompanied minors," stated the NGO in a press release on August 24.

"Transiting for five days keeps us uselessly away from the rescue operation area, despite the fact that it's well-known that the presence of each rescue ship at sea is important across the deadly route to flee."

"The Italian government puts human lives at constant risk with the systematic assigning of distant ports", denounced Humanity 1.

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