The European Commission said Tuesday (August 26) it had contacted Libyan authorities in order to clarify what exactly happened in relation to an alleged shooting by the Libyan coast guard at the Ocean Viking, a migrant rescue ship operated by the Italo-Franco-German-Swiss NGO SOS Mediterannee, on Sunday.

"We have contacted the Libyan authorities to clarify the facts; it is their duty to say what happened," an EC spokesperson said regarding the incident.

"We are establishing the facts; we are not yet at the stage of possible consequences," he added.

'Hundreds of bullets' targeted crew

The Ocean Viking crew said they were raked with "hundreds of bullets" by the Libyan coast guard for over 10 minutes after rescuing a group of migrants off the North African country.

The Italian opposition has called for a deal between Italy and the Libyan coast guard to be revoked.

Angelo Bonelli, MP for the Green-Left Alliance (AVS) and Co-spokesperson for Europa Verde, said: "Last Sunday, the humanitarian vessel Ocean Viking was hit by machine gun fire from the so-called Libyan Coast Guard. Making the episode even more serious is that the vessel used in the attack was donated by Italy to Tripoli in 2023."

"In other words," he added, "the shots that endangered humanitarian workers and shipwrecked people were fired from an Italian vessel handed over to militias operating outside of all legality. The silence of the Meloni government is deafening."

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'Deliberate attack on European rescue vessel'

"This is not the first time that ships donated by Italy have been used against NGOs and fishing vessels, but this time it has reached an unprecedented level of severity: a deliberate attack on a European vessel engaged in a rescue," he added.

"Continuing to finance and arm the so-called Libyan Coast Guard means being complicit. The reality is that our country is held hostage to the blackmail of human traffickers, while the Meloni government remains immobile and silent."

"I demand that Italy immediately cease all collaboration with the Libyan authorities, revoke funding, and block the delivery of further vessels. It is intolerable that our ships are being transformed into instruments of violence against those who save lives," he continued.

"Defending those who rescue means defending the dignity of Italy, international law, and the Constitution."

"Meloni's silence, while an Italian ship is shooting at a humanitarian mission, is an act of political and moral surrender that humiliates our country before Europe and the world."

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Italy's interior minister says boat 'disobeyed orders'

Also on Tuesday, Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said that migrant rescues are managed by the state, not by NGOs.

"It is the state that fights human traffickers and manages and coordinates rescues at sea. Not the NGOs," Piantedosi wrote on X, posting a photo of the Mediterranea ship and the news of the vessel's detention for disobeying the interior ministry's orders, disembarking its rescued migrants in the port of Trapani instead of Genoa, the safe port indicated by the ministry.

Migrant rescue NGOs say the government's sending them to ports far from their operational areas greatly hinders their efforts.

Nicola Fratoianni, Italian Left (SI) leader and another co-leader of AVS, wrote on X to condemn Piantedosi's expressing pride at having stopped the Mediterranea vessel after its rescue.

"Minister Piantedosi, it really takes a lot of nerve to write (or have written) that it is the state that is fighting human traffickers and managing rescue operations at sea, and not NGOs," he wrote in Italian.

"It really takes nerve after having freed with full honors a trafficker like [Libyan alleged war criminal, migrant torturer and rapist General Osama] Almasri or watching helplessly as Libyan bandits, supported by your government, fire on rescue ships."

"It really takes nerve to write these things," the SI leader continued, "after the Cutro massacre and the daily deaths that occur in the Mediterranean in the absence of institutional rescue operations."

"Do you want to manage rescue operations? Do you want," Fratoianni concluded, "to fight human traffickers? Do it once and for all."

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