- The ship was allegedly unable to coordinate with Italian and Libyan authorities.
- A court in Salerno, Italy, suspended the detention order, the third against the vessel and the longest to date.
- As part of its deterrence strategy, Italy is building detention camps in Albania for migrants picked up at sea.
MSF’s Geo Barents vessel received a 60-day detention order—the longest on record—for allegedly failing to properly coordinate with Italian and Libyan authorities while picking up migrants off Libya on August 23. A court in Salerno, the southern Italian port where the vessel had been blocked, suspended the detention order, according to the charity’s post on X.
“The ship is free to rescue lives!” it said.
“The detention of the Geo Barents has been suspended by the court of #Salerno!”
The detention order was the third issued against the vessel and the longest to date. MSF International President Christos Christou traveled to Salerno to support the organization’s appeal.
“At this exact moment the Mediterranean is a huge emergency room and Geo Barents and the doctors are sitting in a corner with their hands tied,” Christou told Reuters, accusing the government of obstructing humanitarian sea rescues.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has enacted legislation to curb the activities of NGOs in the Mediterranean. This includes impounding their vessels or forcing them to travel long distances to disembark migrants, which increases their fuel costs.
Christou dismissed the government’s charges against the MSF ship, stating that it had been “waiting for instructions” as it approached a migrant boat and had spontaneously picked up the passengers after they jumped into the sea. Meloni has defended her approach, pledging at a cabinet meeting last month to launch another crackdown—this time on migrant work permits—and claiming that the reduction in sea arrivals under her watch has also led to fewer migrant drownings.
“The only way to prevent further tragedies at sea is to stop departures and fight unscrupulous traffickers,” she said.
The MSF chief said Meloni’s claims ignored the fact that many deaths at sea go unreported and argued that migrants blocked on their way to Italy would find other routes to Europe. So far this year, Italy has seen about 44,500 sea arrivals, with around 1,100 people either drowning or going missing at sea. Year-on-year, arrivals have dropped by 62 percent, while the number of dead or missing has decreased by about 50 percent.
As part of its deterrence strategy, Meloni’s government is building detention camps in Albania for migrants picked up at sea. Despite delays and criticism from human rights advocates, the plan is expected to become operational within weeks. Christou expressed “serious concerns” about the initiative, calling it “another new way of externalizing the duty of Italians and Europeans” to assist people fleeing poverty or conflict.
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