«There are 6 victims a day in the Mediterranean and these deaths», «are the result of governmental choices and decisions, not only Italian, which have forgotten people’s rights, which are based exclusively on security and deterrence logics.” So in an interview on Tomorrow Marco Bertotto, director of Doctors Without Borders programs that, in reference to the rescue of migrants at sea, speaks of “real boycott policies”. «With the Piantedosi decree, rescues at sea are extremely hindered», continues Bertotto, who adds: «The activity of NGOs is criminalised, and certain rules make it increasingly marginal: imposing a single rescue on ships, assigning them a port very distant from the SAR areas, means not only preventing a second rescue, but also and above all reducing our operations. Not to mention the sanctions that are foreseen in case of violation of what has been established.” The latest tragedy in chronological order is the one that occurred off the coast of Calabria. Only twelve survivors, around fifty still missing at sea, including 26 children. Bertotto states on the case: «It is a shameful silence, a silence that demonstrates that there is no empathy towards migrants and the issue of migration, but only a total inertia on the part of the institutions.” To date,” continues Bertotto, “the mechanism for coordinating rescues at sea as we knew it in 2011 has effectively disappeared. At the time, NGOs were considered assets available to the maritime authorities to carry out rescues, but gradually”, he explains Bertotto, «all this has disappeared and currently there is no longer that type of cooperation: the NGOs, with their own means and independently, identify the boats and the dangers».
