Organization has rescued 12,675 people and carried out 190 rescue operations since June 2021
The organization Doctors Without Borders announced that it will “for now” interrupt search and rescue operations with the Geo Barents ship operating in the central Mediterranean due to the “absurd and senseless laws” of the Italian Government.
One of the objectives of the Government led by Giorgia Meloni is to end irregular immigration.
In a statement, this non-governmental organization specifies that it will suspend the ship’s operations “due to absurd and meaningless laws, created by the Piantedosi decree [nome do ministro do Interior] January 2023 and which were hardened in December 2024”.
Doctors Without Borders has rescued 12,675 people and carried out 190 rescue operations since June 2021.
The organization justifies this decision with the rule promoted by the Italian Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, which makes rescue work in the Mediterranean more difficult and allows ships to be blocked.
In the statement, Doctors Without Borders calls for a review of this standard and promises to return to the field as soon as the necessary conditions are met.
“[A Médicos Sem Fronteiras] will return to the sea as quickly as possible to save lives in the central Mediterranean, where more than 31,000 people have died or gone missing since 2014 and confirms its commitment to helping people on the move along one of the world’s deadliest migration routes”, guarantees the organization .
And he adds: “We will also return to witness and denounce the violations committed against migrants by Italy, the Member States of the European Union (EU) and other actors”, says Juan Matías Gil, head of the organization’s search and rescue mission.
According to this non-governmental organization, in the last two years, the ship Geo Barents was subjected to four sanctions by the Italian authorities, totaling 160 days of administrative detention “for the simple fact of fulfilling its humanitarian and legal duty to save lives in sea”.
“The practice of the Italian authorities of assigning distant ports, often in the north, for the disembarkation of people rescued at sea has further diminished Geo Barents’ ability to rescue lives at sea and be present where it is most needed”, he says.
“Instead of using the rescue capacity of humanitarian ships, the Italian authorities reduce their operational capacity. Italian laws and policies express a true disregard for the lives of people crossing the Mediterranean”, says Margot Bernard, project coordinator.
Geo Barents, in operation since June 2021, rescued 12,675 people in 190 operations, recovered the bodies of 24 people, organized the medical evacuation of 18 people and attended the birth of a child.
In the two years since Piantedosi’s decree came into force, Doctors Without Borders and other organizations have lodged five individual complaints with the European Commission, “inviting it to examine the restrictions in light of EU law, but so far without success”, it concludes. the organization.
