Italy: Giorgia Meloni's government closes ports to NGO ships

Italy's new right-wing led government on Friday has adopted a measure formalizing the closure of its ports to rescue ships run by humanitarian groups as four vessels with more than 1,000 migrants continue to push for access to a safe port.

Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi told reporters that it will allow a German migrant rescue ship to arrive in Sicily to evacuate minors and those with medical emergencies, but that the ship must then return to international waters with the rest of the migrants.

Piantedosi said the German-flagged Humanity 1, carrying 179 people, "forced the situation by entering into territorial waters.''But he emphasized that Italy's insists that it is the flag country of each charity-operated ship that must intervene to provide a safe port and not Italy.

The fate of the other ships was not addressed, but Piantedosi said France had indicated that it "could accept the possibility to disembark" the Norway-flagged Ocean Viking, which has 234 people on board.

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The Humanity 1 was on its way to the Sicilian port of Catania, Piantedosi said, adding it can only remain in Italian waters as long as it takes to evacuate minors and people needing medical care.

The move came after France and Germany asked Italy's new far-right-led government to grant a safe port to more than 1,000 people rescued by humanitarian groups in the central Mediterranean, some of whom have been stuck at sea for more than two weeks.

The posture adopted by Premier Giorgia Meloni's new government marks a return to the anti-NGO position adopted by Matteo Salvini, now a deputy premier, when he was interior minister from 2018-2019.

Salvini, currently the infrastructure minister in charge of ports, welcomed the new decree in Facebook post, saying it would ensure that "foreign ships cannot arrive solely in Italy with their illegal immigrants."