Italy's coast guard chief told ANSA
Tuesday that they would always respond to distress calls from
migrant boats in the Mediterranean.
Speaking after Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said Monday
he would back Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli if he told the
coast guard not to answer the calls, Admiral Giovanni Pettorino
said " we have always responded, we always respond and we will
always respond to all rescue calls".
He said "we do so because it is a legal obligation but also
an obligation we feel morally: all men of the sea have always
staged rescues and brought help to those in trouble at sea, even
without conventions. We have never left anyone alone at sea".
Pettorino added that "we operate on the basis of the Hamburg
Convention for search and rescue at sea, which dates back to
1979 and was created for episodes that happen once in a while,
not all the time. What is happening now, on the other hand, is
an epochal, Biblical exodus, with an entire people moving or
trying to move by sea along a short but dangerous stretch of
water, with inadequate vessels and so we need to revise the
Convention.
(For the government, anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S)
MP and Costa Concordia disaster hero Gregorio De Falco denied
there was a "Biblical exodus" and said migrant arrivals from
Libya were falling.)
Italy is the only one out of the 23 Mediterranean countries
to rescue migrants, Pettorino told ANSA.
"We have coordinated all the rescues in an area of one
million and one hundred thousand square kilometres which is
practically the half of the Mediterranean, and yet 23 countries
look onto this sea," the admiral said.
"The coast guard did this alone, with the help of all those
who helped, merchant ships, military ships, all those who
answered our calls. Now the scenario is changing because Libya
is intervening."
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