Italy Directs NGO Rescue Ship with 89 Migrants to Port

After spending days at sea, the German charity organisation Mission Lifeline said on Monday that Italy has instructed its migrant rescue ship to go to the port of Reggio Calabria with 89 people on board.

After saving 95 people in the central Mediterranean, the 25-meter (80-foot) ship Rise Above entered Italian waters over the weekend without permission due to storm-swollen seas. Due to medical emergencies, six people had to be evacuated at sea.

"We are relieved that waiting on the high seas is over. The situation on board has become more and more critical in the past few days and hours," Mission Lifeline spokeswoman Hermine Poschmann said. "We expect that the Italian authorities give everyone access to a legally compliant asylum procedure and that people do not have to stay on our ship any longer than necessary."

Italy is taking a tough stance with nongovernmental organisations that operate in the central Mediterranean, thus it has declined to provide migrant rescue ships with a port of safety. Instead, it has been directing them to ports where only weaker people are permitted to disembark. The people who are not judged vulnerable must then return to international seas, the Italian officials stress.

Premier Giorgia Meloni's far-right-leaning administration is demanding that the migrants be taken in by the nations whose flags are flown by the ships rather than only Italy.

According to Poschmann, Mission Lifeline has requested that Germany accept more refugees.

Two other NGO-run vessels are berthed in Catania; one has 214 passengers and the other has 35, but Italy forbids them from disembarking. Both ships are adamantly refusing to depart, claiming that all those saved at sea are defenceless and entitled to a safe port under international law.

With 234 individuals who have been rescued, a fourth vessel, the Ocean Viking, run by SOS Mediterannee, is still in international waters off Sicily. It completed its first rescue 17 days ago.