BARI, Italy — The year has gotten off to a slow start for a rescue ship that typically plies the Mediterranean Sea looking for migrants and refugees in distress. The Ocean Viking has been impounded, its crew accused of having deviated from a designated course, as Italy targets charity groups that operate such vessels.
It was the second time in as many months that Italian authorities detained the 225-foot ship, operated by the European group SOS Mediterranee, while enforcing a year-old Italian government decree that regulates maritime rescue charities.
The hard-right-led government of Premier Giorgia Meloni approved the decree as part of efforts to stem the flow of migrants and would-be asylum-seekers trying to reach Europe. Italian maritime authorities now routinely assign privately operated rescue ships to ports in central and northern Italy, hundreds of miles and several days of navigation away from where they find boats in trouble.
Authorities also forbid the aid groups’ vessels from carrying out multiple rescue operations without authorization.
The government says the measures are intended to reduce migration pressure on southern Italy and to regulate sea missions that it maintains only encourage more migrants to attempt risky crossings from North Africa.
To date, 13 or 14 charity-run rescue ships have been impounded for various violations. The aid groups deny that their activities provide an incentive and argue that Italy’s procedures take their ships out of operation for days while leaving vulnerable migrants to the whims of the Mediterranean.
The SOS Mediterranee is accused of having deviated from its assigned route to a port in Bari, a city on Italy’s Adriatic coast, where the crew was directed after having rescued 244 people at sea. The Ocean Viking went off course on Dec. 27 to respond to a civilian aircraft’s report of a boat in distress some 15 nautical miles away.
It resumed its original course to Bari after corrected coordinates showed the boat was too far away and Italian authorities had dismissed Ocean Viking from the mission.
“We are accused of not having followed the orders of the Italian coast guard, and the only fault we have is that of having followed the law of the sea,” said Alessandro Porro, a senior rescuer and president of SOS Mediterranee’s Italy operation.
After arriving as originally scheduled in Bari on Dec. 30, the crew received a 20-day detention order for the ship and a 3,300-euro ($3,600) fine. The detention order expired last Friday, and SOS Mediterranee hopes to set out again as soon as possible, weather permitting.
“We know this is a tactic to try and stop our operation rather than something that is valid in some way,” said Mary Finn, another Ocean Viking rescuer. “And I find it painful to feel that humanity’s not on our side or that the authorities aren’t on our side, because it’s so obvious when you do this work that what we’re doing is the right thing to be doing.”
Sara Kelany, the migration policy coordinator for Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, agreed that saving lives is a priority. But she said the presence of charity-run ships in the Mediterranean must be limited and strictly regulated.
