IMAGE: CNS photo/Juan Medina, Reuters
By Cindy Wooden
ROME (CNS) — Tweeting with hashtags that translate as
“Closed ports” and “Open hearts,” Italy’s interior minister
disputed claims that the Italian government was complicit in leaving a migrant
to die in the Mediterranean Sea as she clung to a board from a destroyed
fishing boat.
Matteo Salvini, the minister, has given strong support to
Italy’s policy of having the Libyan coast guard patrol its own shores, pushing
back refugee boats or taking the migrants and refugees back to camps in Libya.
He also has worked to prevent rescue boats from
docking in Italy until other European countries agree to take a share of the
migrants onboard.
Salvini and others credit the Italian policy with leading to
a sharp decline in the number of migrants and refugees arriving on Italy’s
shores. The 17,838 migrants and refugees who arrived between Jan. 1 and July 18
represent an 86.5 percent decline from the number of arrivals in the same
period in 2017 and an 84.8 percent decline compared to the same period in 2016,
according to figures compiled by the Department of Public Security and posted
on the Interior Ministry website July 18.
But the numbers did not bump from the front pages of Italian
newspapers the photographs of Josefa, a migrant from Cameroon, being pulled
from the Mediterranean July 17 by rescuers from the Spanish organization
Proactiva Open Arms. The organization said it also pulled from the water the
dead bodies of a woman and a child.
The organization accused the Libyan coast guard of attacking
the boat the refugees were on and leaving some of the migrants to die.
A Libyan official said it intercepted a boat with 158 people
on board July 16; the migrants were transferred to a coast guard vessel, given
food and medical attention and returned to Libya. The boat was destroyed to
prevent other smugglers from using it, the Libyans said.
After Proactiva accused the Italian government of being complicit
in the abandonment of Josefa and in the deaths of the two people pulled from
the sea, Salvini on Twitter accused the organization of “lies and
insults” and said that what happened “confirms we are right:
reducing the number of departures and arrivals means reducing deaths, reducing the
earnings of those who speculate on clandestine immigration.”
Salvini, who has been deputy prime minister and interior
minister since June 1, has insisted on a hardline policy limiting immigration.
The policy relies both on turning migrants and refugees back to Libya and on
forcing member countries of the European Union to contribute to the care of
migrants and refugees, who tend to reach land in Italy, Greece, Malta or Spain.
Like other church commentators, Msgr. Robert J. Vitillo, the
Geneva-based secretary-general of the International Catholic Migration
Commission, noted how Salvini’s actions and comments came so close to the
fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’ first trip outside of Rome as pope. The pope
visited the island of Lampedusa, a major port for migrants and refugees,
and he prayed there for the thousands of people who lost their lives at sea in
the search for peace and a better life.
“I am left with the haunting question cited by Pope
Francis, ‘Cain, where is your brother?'” Msgr. Vitillo said in an email
response to questions July 18. “While states and civil society have spent
countless hours in consultations and negotiations, how many more precious and
invaluable lives are being lost? While we continue to fight over ‘burden
sharing,’ how much do we recognize the contributions of refugees and migrants
to host populations who welcome them? Why aren’t we talking about ‘resource
sharing’ instead of ‘responsibility sharing’?”
As for the claim that Proactiva and other NGOs rescuing the
migrants at sea actually entice people to set out and make smugglers’ jobs easier
since they increase the possibility of a safe passage, Msgr. Vitillo suggested
people making that claim need to speak with some of the migrants and refugees
“who felt forced to leave their homelands in order to seek safety,
security, freedom and dignity elsewhere.”
Ordained in 1972 for the Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey,
Msgr. Vitillo said he has worked with hundreds of refugees and migrants in his
46 years as a priest.
“I spent much time in refugee camps and migrant
processing centers,” he said. Most of the people “have told me how
much they would have preferred to stay at home. Many of the refugees have
shared with me the horrors of their frequent and unsuccessful attempts to leave
their home countries because they saw no other way to survive.”
Today, he said, “forced migrants reveal the same
circumstances — they are responding to basic needs for survival, not any lure
of ‘search and rescue’ boats!”
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Follow Wooden on Twitter: @Cindy_Wooden
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