No one questions the well-established and tested machine that is mobilized every time the port of Salerno becomes a disembarkation point for migrants who are generally saved in the waters of the Sicilian channel. But this perfect machine has nothing to do with reception, these are simple disembarkation operations involving human beings, and are carried out with all the sensitivity and humanity that such an operation requires. This is what is done in all Italian ports where ships rescuing migrants are “forced” to set sail. The Geo Barents, a ship of the NGO Doctors Without Borders, had to travel I don’t know how many nautical miles in I don’t know how long to reach Salerno; I know for a fact, however, that her crew has cursed a thousand times that path imposed by a government that has defined migrants as “residual cargo”, and as such treats them without a shred of humanity. I believe that these considerations must be at the center of every reasoning that is carried out
when we talk about landings in our waters, and reflect on the fact that all the time that is wasted for NGOs to sail the waters of half of Italy (even the whole of it) and the waiting in our port, is all time taken away from further rescues and relief efforts at sea. The landing season has just begun, no one can predict its evolution, one thing we could do: oppose the vicissitudes that this government has imposed on the ships involved in rescuing migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean.
As? Certainly not by denying docking at our port, it can’t be done, but if it could, why not! What can be done instead: we are at the 34th Salerno landing, waiting for the ships at the port, as it should be, they are always present, and always will be, all institutional levels, perhaps it is the case that in their declarations they are raised these considerations, which have to do with the sensitivity and humanity that migrants rescued at sea and the crews of the ships that bring them to safety need. We express our solidarity with those who save human lives and we strongly condemn those who hinder all this with inhumane policies.
Anselmo Botte
Salerno Antiracist Forum
