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SEVERAL MIGRANTS JUMPED into the sea from a Spanish rescue boat today in a thwarted bid to reach shore in Italy, where the government’s hard-line interior minister has refused to let the 107 passengers disembark.
“We have been warning for days, desperation has its limits,” Open Arms founder Oscar Camps said.
Crew members from the humanitarian group’s ship swam quickly toward them so they could be brought back aboard.
Sky News / TwitterMigrants on a humanitarian ship off the Italian coast had to be chased after they jumped into the sea in an attempt to reach land.
— Sky News (@SkyNews) August 18, 2019
107 migrants are on the boat which has been stranded for two weeks trying to get permission to dock.
More here: https://t.co/lhdMzXIkXM pic.twitter.com/xDA9yxCpO4
This evening, Open Arms said it had urgently requested permission to enter Lampedusa’s port so the migrants, aboard for 17 days, could finally get off. It said their psychological and physical conditions are “at risk”.
Interior Minister Matteo Salvini refused docking permission because he contends charity rescue boats essentially facilitate the smuggling of migrants from the traffickers’ base in Libya. Salvini’s resolve has seen previous similar standoffs end with disembarkation either ultimately taking place in Italy or elsewhere in Europe.
Earlier today, Spain offered one of its ports for the migrants to come ashore, but Open Arms said it would be absurd to undertake a journey, that could take perhaps a week, with the migrants.
For days, Open Arms has been anchored off Lampedusa, a fishing island between Sicily and northern Africa. The boat initially had 147 migrants aboard when it reached Italian waters.
In the last few days, 40 migrants have been transferred by Italian coast guard vessels to Lampedusa, including a few who were ailing and 27 believed to be minors.
A Norwegian-flagged ship, Ocean Viking, operated by two French humanitarian groups, has been sailing for days with 356 rescued migrants aboard between Malta and Lampedusa and other tiny Italian island, Linosa, awaiting assignment of a safe port. Salvini has also vowed to block that ship.
“Whoever hangs tough wins,” far-right Salvini said. “In Italy there’s no place for traffickers.”
Open Arms carried out its first rescue of this group 17 days earlier, plucking migrants to safety from smugglers’ unseaworthy dinghies off Libya.
Torture and sexual abuse
Seeking to break the standoff, Spain today offered a far southern port, Algeciras, just west of Gibraltar, to Open Arms, even while acknowledging that the harbor is distant and unsuitable to disembark so many migrants.
The office of Spain’s caretaker prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said the offer reflected the “emergency situation” on the boat and Salvini’s “unconceivable response” in refusing docking.
“But right now, Spain is the only country ready to receive (the boat),” Sanchez’ office said.
A spokeswoman for the Spanish NGO, Laura Lanuza, said undertaking such a long voyage to Spain would be “crazy”.
“There is anxiety, bouts of violence, control is becoming increasingly difficult,” she said.
To embark on a six-day sailing with these people on board who are at the very limit of their possibilities would be crazy. We can’t put their health and lives at risk.
Referring to the migrants’ plunge into the sea, Open Arms said in a tweet: “We cannot contain the desperation any longer.”
Some of the trafficked migrants have spent months or years in Libyan detention camps, suffering torture and sexual abuse there, and they and their family have turned over life savings to smugglers for the opportunity to escape persecution or poverty at home.
Salvini earlier today told the ship to go to Spain, and, in a tweet, contended that Open Arms was staying anchored off Lampedusa “just to provoke me and Italy”.
Spain and five other countries have offered to take the migrants, dividing them among themselves, but that didn’t change Salvini’s mind against docking.
Open Arms contended that Salvini is using the 107 migrants for “xenophobic and racist propaganda”.
Euro has been an unmitigated disaster .
Certainly from wee Paddy’s perspective, bailing out this disaster .
@Willy Malone: Are you even old enough to remember the punt and what the economy was before the bubble? Newsflash! For almost all the time we had our own currency the country was in recession or close to bankrupt.
@8bitplebian: totally agree with you there.in fact can’t see why there can’t be a single world currency.it might cut out all this fluctuation and maybe even some of the corruption.Le Pen fluffed her chances when she misused European Parliament funds.
@Bennythekid: We had big self inflicted recessions in the 30s and 80s. The first was long before the concept of the EU. You can destroy an economy with (Greece) or without (Venezuela) a currency union.
@8bitplebian:
So we needed the Euro to bail us out, and in turn we end up bailing it out, bit of a disaster all round.
@8bitplebian: interest rates were also insane back when we had to punt, 18 percent in early eighties. 12 percent in early 90s. Yep, Things were far from better!
It’s funny that people pay no attention to what previously happened in this country.
We also bailed out banks back then too, AIB was bailed out back in the days of the punt.
@8bitplebian: Not quite as black or white. Ireland’s celtic tiger began in the mid 90s when we still had the punt, 2000-2001 were great, once the Euro came into effect in 2002 it kept going, but the economy was already performing well. The unemployment and economics of the past were die to failed policies. It was the change to corporate tax and economic measures from the 90s that gave us a boom and a recession. The Euro just made it more difficult to come out of that recession. Look at Iceland, no Euro, hot rock bottom in 2008 and they are on the top of the world now and has been for a while already.
@Juan Venegas: Couple of points there. The “real” boom appears to have lasted for no more than a few years at best from around 97 to 2001 with the rest being property inspired madness. I’d be hesitant to call that as having anything to do with currency. Also the comparison to Iceland is not a fair one. It has the population of Limerick county and could make a nice enough living just selling fish to the rest of the world.
@8bitplebian: Or old enough to remember the Pound?
Let’s hope Le Pen wins outright
It will be the best thing for France
@Gary Purcell: yeah, nothing like starting a economic war to make things better for everyone.
@Gary Purcell: A brainless populist thug, clearly melting under any form of adult scrutiny.
@Diarmuid:
Coming from you that’s a bit rich, wasn’t it you who hoped the EU would give the UK ‘a good hiding’ over Brexit? What did you mean exactly? An invasion? Sanctions? Punishing the voters for actually voting and winning, is a bit sick.
Cue all the comments about how terrible the euro is followed by the usual verbiage about printing our own currency again. Countries like Ireland who grossly mismanage and inflate their economies as in the early 2000′s will eventually experience a crash, irrespective of them being constrained by the rules of a single currency union or not.
@8bitplebian: There’s some truth in that, but being in a single currency removes much of the ability to do the management necessary. FF made an unholy mess of the public finances, but there was very little they could do to prevent the mad accumulation of private debt that was fuelled by the euro.
@Ben McArthur: I think that’s an unknown. When FF faced down the economic crisis in the 80s (created in part by their own 1977 budget) the approach they took made the situation progressively worse even with all the tools they had available. We also had very high inflation and a currency devaluation to worry about. So there’s no reason to think the 2008 crash would have been handled any better.
@8bitplebian:
Correct me if I misunderstand your position but your arguing that our politicians are inept whether in the Euro or not, so its better to stay in it?
@Maurice Bourke: No, more that blaming the single currency for the 2008 crash and subsequent recession is inaccurate. Economic mismanagement can happen with or without the euro. If Ireland had properly regulated its banks and controlled the property bubble, the impact of the then financial crisis would have been much less severe.
Le Pen is as damaged as her father -
The thing about Le Pen is she could win if she pledged a tough crackdown on non-EU migration, while maintaining the status quo economically and pledging to keep the euro.
If she just stuck to that issue, she would win.
@Fred Jensen: Le Pen might not even get to the 2nd round and there are absolutely no poll results that even suggest that she will win.
@Neil Mcdonough:
I know. I’m saying she is shooting herself in the foot with her anti-euro rhetoric. Peoples savings would be wiped out. She should just stick purely to the non-EU migration issue if she wants to win.
@Fred Jensen: I don’t understand her point about the Euro. Some countries might do well to leave it, Greece for example ( mainly because they should have never adopted it in the first place ) but there is no way it would benefit France in any way anymore.
That was by far not the moment of that debate. Macron is the worst that could happen to France,worst than le pen.that guy agree with everyone and can never answer a question. The best moments of the debate came when the so called “petit candidates “started speaking specially Mr asselinaud. Mr poutou or Miss arthaud. Macron telling people that Tx to European Union we were not killing each other what a joke that guy is.
@Frantz Harband: “Macron is the worst that could happen to France …” Most people agree, yet the media always give him as favourite. Hmmm…
@Neil Mcdonough: Like Simon Coveney, he is backed by the bilderburgers
Ireland cannot be trusted to manage its own independent currency. Look at what Charlie Haughey did when Ireland did a devaluation. he passed insider information to his cronies so that they could enrich themselves.
It would be better, in light of the credit bubble from 2002 to 2007, had Ireland not joined the euro because it facilitated a massive credit expansion for non economically productive borrowing but exiting the euro would now be be very damaging.
Public goverance and economic management in Ireland are very lacking. The Punch and Judy of FG andf FF does not help. It is a Lanigan’s Ball.
@Neil Mcdonough: Like Simon Coveney, he has the same bilderburgh backing
Macron or Le Pen?
Pragmatists will prefer Macron.
Ideologues with far right sympathies, Brexit types, will prefer Le Pen.
At least there is a choice but with choice comes adult responsibility.
@Tony Daly: Listened to the entire debate and some of the commentry this morning. Le Pen has her support but did herself no favours trying to convince anyone else last night. Macron, the candidate of the media did no better. The surprising thing is the media constantly make him favourite yet no-one I know, both from the left and right, can stand him. He’s seen as being more liberal than Fillon, thatcherite even, but mostly an empty vessel who tries to please everyone.
Melenchon maybe but unlikely, and no-one should write off Fillon yet. If it wasn’t for his affairs with the law, he would stand head and shoulders above the rest in terms of stature and experience. Going to be an interesting few weeks!
@Neil Mcdonough: all the French people I know will happily vote Macron.
@David Fülöp: Interesting. That would have been true also a while back for some of my acquaintances, but not anymore. Sound more and more like Vallsozy everyday.
@David Fülöp: your friends are blind . that guy is a joke. He will the continuation of what’s happening for the last 15 years in France.
I never liked when we switched from the punt to the euro. I found I could get very little with the euro. With the old currency you could get a litre of milk for a pound/punt. With the euro, out can but a bag of chrisps with a euro and then, that’s it. It’s gone. There was no value in the euro. The euro only benefitted those who dealt with mainland Europe often like for holidays or work.
So I was never a fan of the euro. However we are stuck with it. I don’t like it when I read comments about ditching the euro and going back to the old currency. A new currency will be worthless for a long time and imports into the country would be very expensive and we rely a lot on imports.
Debates will mean very little. Le Pen hasn’t got a hope. Even if she gets through the first round, she’ll get utterly demolished in the 2nd round of voting.
Another one with lots of rhetoric and no plan just like the brexiteers. Easy to knock something down very difficult to put in a credible alternative. But no one looks at that.
When Ireland had the punt it was like living in Mexico, there was always the risk of devaluation and currency shocks.
have your say