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The policy

In early January 2023, Italy passed a decree imposing strict limitations on the activities of humanitarian NGO boats rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean Sea.

The Impact

The Ocean Viking, a refugee rescue boat operated by the SOS Méditerranée NGO, is spending much less time than before in what’s known as “the zone of rescue”.

And that has ramifications.

“The less time we spend in the zone of rescue, the more likely it is people will die, as there’s nobody there to render assistance,” rescue coordinator Luisa Albera told me on board the ship in January, sitting in her dimly lit station on the bridge, surrounded by radar screens, charts and radio gear.

So why are they no longer there so much? 

To answer that, we need to go back to the beginning of this year.

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Reducing migrant arrivals was long high on the agenda of the Italian right. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s coalition partner, Matteo Salvini, has form on the matter.

In 2018, as interior minister, he closed Italian ports to 629 migrants aboard the MS Aquarius, another ship operated by SOS Mediterranée.

Such stunts tended to draw the ire of European neighbours. In late 2022, one of his successors, current Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi, offered a half-hearted apology to France after Paris intervened in a similar stand-off between Italy and the Ocean Viking.

France had accused Italy of violating its international legal obligations and, in response, it cancelled an agreement to resettle 3,000 refugees from Rome.

Meloni’s cabinet were in a bind. How could they stop migrant disembarkations without violating international law? With the decree in January of this year, they found a way to thread that needle.

Italian authorities would now assign a port of safety to NGO boats as soon as they carried out a rescue. This was nothing special in isolation. In fact, it's standard procedure under maritime law.

The catch is that the new law obliges the boats to proceed immediately to the port of safety. There can be no hanging around looking for other migrant boats in distress.

It's a marked departure from before when boats would often wait weeks, and perform multiple rescues, before Italy acquiesced to their requests for a port.

The authorities have also started assigning ports in Northern Italy, several days sailing time from the rescue zone, rather than a port in Sicily which is only one day’s travel. They are thereby forcing the NGO boats to spend more time in transit and less in the rescue zone.

Onboard the Ocean Viking, the crew expressed a grudging acknowledgement of the law’s ingenuity.

“It’s very clever,” said one, reflecting the general consensus.

In the time I spent on board the Viking, it made two rescues, the first of 113 people and the second 37, shuttling eight days to port and back in between. By contrast, its last mission before the new decree disembarked 234 people after six rescues, and before that, 466 after 10.

The crew train for weeks, preparing for a window of intense activity during which they expect to save multiple refugee boats in the space of a day or two. Many were dismayed to come so far, train so hard, and leave after just one rescue.

“I’m a rescue worker,” said one. “I need to be able to focus on that moment. Going back and forth like this, it’s really hard.”

Many also lamented that they’d been alerted to boats in distress but were too far away to help.

The new legislation has financial implications for rescue NGOs, too. With high energy prices and the cost of living crisis eating into donations, 2022 saw SOS Mediterranée facing additional costs of $1,000,000. Travelling longer distances for each rescue pushes up fuel costs. Fewer rescues also means less opportunities for the social media posts that often bring in fresh donations.

There is, though, one positive trade-off. By assigning ports of safety immediately, the Italian authorities give those who have been rescued some certainty about their immediate future.

The survivors I spent time with did not react immediately to being told, just a few hours after being rescued, that they were going to Italy. As the realisation slowly dawned, however, they began smiling and clapping. They stayed up late, singing and dancing on the deck.

“I’m feeling happy, and so thankful to these guys for saving our lives, taking care of us,” said Mariam from Senegal. “We are so happy.”

People rescued in the Mediterranean have often been beaten, abused and terrorised in Libya, a common point of departure for refugees from all the world, before boarding the rickety boats they use to try to make it to Europe. Kidnappings and extortion are common, as is sexual violence. More than once on board, I heard the words "hell on earth".

"So many of us, we are suffering in Libya,” Joseph, who was from Nigeria, told me. “That’s why we take this risky journey (across the ocean). For us, it’s between life and death.”

The long periods of waiting typical of previous missions often had a devastating effect on the wellbeing of survivors. Cramped conditions, exposure to the elements, and the lack of certainty caused acute distress during the long periods known as "the stand-off".

Rebecca, one of the medical care team, told me that distress escalated the longer the wait.

“I’ve seen survivors in the past jumping overboard out of despair.”

There are also medical consequences to prolonged stand-offs. Rebecca described seeing people with chronic conditions deteriorating, pregnant women facing life-threatening complications, and people experiencing extreme post-traumatic stress.

So she’s pleased to see ports of safety issued quickly, but she is acutely aware of the new difficulties posed by the long transit times to Northern Italy.

The assurance of knowing where they’re going, and that it’s not back to Libya, is a huge relief to those rescued. I got to know one teenager, “Emmanuel”, an unaccompanied minor from Cameroon who loved playing ludo on his phone. On the final day before the passengers disembarked, he grew quiet.

Eventually, he confessed he hadn’t fully understood the speech explaining what would happen when they reached Italy. After peppering one of the cultural mediators on board with questions, he suddenly began to smile and chat again.

“I’m happy, I feel ready,” he said.

He was one of the lucky ones.

The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that, at a bare minimum, 1,377 people died last year trying to cross the Mediterranean in search of safety and a better life.

With this new law, Giorgia Meloni’s government will likely see the reduction in disembarkations it wants.

But, with as many sailings from Libya as ever, there will be a human cost to a political victory.

Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Context or the Thomson Reuters Foundation.