Govt hits back at NGO over Albania-migrant-deal flak

(ANSA) - ROME, OCT 15 - Premier Giorgia Meloni and Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi on Tuesday hit back at German search-and-rescue charity Sea-Watch for having criticised the government's programme to send some migrants rescued in the Mediterranean to centres on Albanian territory.
    The NGO compared these facilities to concentration camps and it has also criticised agreements reached with the authorities in Libya and Tunisia aimed at trying to halt illegal migrant crossings.
    Addressing the Senate before this week's EU summit, Meloni said Sea-Watch was "shameful" and accused of it having called Italian Coast Guard forces "the real human traffickers" saying it was delegitimizing the Coast Guards of North African States "and perhaps the Italian one too".
    Piantedosi said it was "peculiar" that the criticism had come from entities that devote most of their funding, including public money to "activities at sea that, despite all good intentions, could be opportunistically exploited by unscrupulous human traffickers who, in addition to committing criminal acts, put people's lives at risk on a daily basis". (ANSA).