The Solidaire NGO rescue ship arrived on September 8 at around noon in Italy's Livorno port with 262 migrants rescued off the African coast in the preceding days. A total of 265 migrants had been rescued. However, three suffering from health issues requiring urgent care were taken by a Coast Guard patrol boat to Lampedusa: a Moroccan, a Bangladeshi, and a Guinean.

The migrants that disembarked in Livorno were from Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Morocco, Libya, Ivory Coast, and Nigeria, as well as the Indian subcontinent and the Horn of Africa.

Once in port, Maritime Health Authority (USMAF) physicians boarded the vessel to check the health of those on board. Then they were disembarked at the Cruise Terminal, where the prefect's office, civil protection, and municipality had set up a center for initial reception and where, after getting clothes and food, the migrants underwent a more thorough health check and identification procedures were completed by personnel from the police immigration office.

The migrants were subsequently sent to different places: 105 will be hosted in centers in the Emilia Romagna region, the same number in ones in the Lazio region, and the others will remain in Tuscany. Only one unaccompanied female child who was deemed "vulnerable" will be put under the responsibility of the Livorno administration and hosted by an educational community center.

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40 unaccompanied minors and two pregnant women

Among the migrants disembarked were 40 unaccompanied minors and two pregnant women. The initial medical checks, a statement from the Tuscany region noted, showed fragile health conditions with cases of scabies, chemical burns from contact with fuel, patients suffering from diabetes and hypertension, as well as people bearing on their bodies and minds the signs of torture and violence suffered in Libyan detention centers.

Among those disembarked are two pregnant women, one of whom is a minor, according to the regional councillor for the environment, civil protection, and territorial defense, Monia Monni.

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Government-assigned ports far from rescue, 'cruel'

"Since December 2023, there have been many boats disembarking migrants and the mechanism of the civil protection is now one that has been tested, with ever higher numbers of volunteers and healthcare personnel involved," Monni said, confirming "once again the Tuscany regional government's commitment to doing its part."

"Tuscan ports, however, are unfortunately very far away [from the rescue points], with all the difficulties and consequences that this entails -- first and foremost on the health and psycho-physical state of survivors. The government had announced a naval blockade; it had said that it would pursue traffickers the world over, but it ended up only multiplying ports and signing ineffective agreements," the councillor said.

He stressed that "in this way, people who are already exhausted are forced to withstand additional days on the seas, a truly senseless form of torture. The Tuscany regional government, instead, believes in wide-ranging reception [of migrants], which has worked and which gives life and future possibilities."

Regional social policies councillor Serena Spinelli underscored that the "mechanism is tested, but one cannot remain silent before this inhumane and failing way of managing migration flows. The propaganda had claimed that boats would stop coming, but this has not happened. In Tuscany, there is a capacity for a response. However, we cannot accept that women, men, and children who survive dramatic journeys are subjected to further suffering due to short-sighted and cruel political choices."

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