The ship’s captain facing jail after defying Italian law to bring 42 migrants into port has said she would do it all over again and hit out at Italy’s far-right deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini.
“People’s lives matter more than any political game,” Carola Rackete, the German captain of the migrant NGO rescue ship Sea-Watch 3, told the Guardian.
Last week Rackete, 31, was temporarily placed under house arrest for violating an Italian naval blockade that was trying to stop her bringing the group of migrants she had rescued off Libya to the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa.
“Good afternoon, sir. I have to inform you I must enter Italian waters,” she can be heard telling the coastguard after two weeks stranded at sea, in a garbled radio transmission released by her aid group.
“I cannot guarantee the safety of these people any more,” she added. “I have to disembark the 42 people I have onboard. I will turn the ship around and enter Italian waters.”
“Sea-Watch, you are not authorised to enter Italian waters,” the officer replied. “Sea-Watch, do you receive me? You are not authorised to enter Italian waters!”
Comments
Post a Comment