Migrants arrested and fined for the Mare Jonio. Casarini takes it out on Meloni: “You don’t scare us”

“I send a message to Giorgia Meloni: you don’t scare us, we will continue to think that first we save ourselves and then we discuss, these measures don’t scare us. We will continue.” Thus ends, with the words of Luca Casarini, the impromptu press conference on board the Mare Jonio ship, the NGO ship fresh from an armed attack launched by Libyans at sea. Commander Giovanni Buscema, and Beppe Caccia for the shipping company, Idra Social Shipping, had just received in Pozzallo the notification of the 20-day administrative detention (with a fine of up to 10 thousand euros) of the ship used by Mediterranea Saving Humans to operate rescue at sea. Yesterday the Mare Jonio disembarked 56 people in Pozzallo who were rescued 95 miles from the Libyan coast. According to what was reported in the minutes, the Libyan sea rescue coordination center reported “that an NGO inflatable boat approached the Libyan patrol boat which had previously rescued people on board and incited the migrants to jump into the sea to interrupt the operations ” of the Libyan patrol boat. At the rescue scene, the machine gun shots fired by the Libyans towards the migrants and the rescuers were documented by the cameras of the Mare Jonio operators, according to whom the dangerous situation was created by the Libyan patrol boat and the support dinghy.

And here is the position taken by Casaraini, head of mission of the NGO Mediterranea: “Faced with the criminal action of the so-called Libyan Coast Guard, which has captured and deported men, women and children in Libya, faced with a rescue operation, the The Italian government, despite the fact that the Mare Jonio was subjected to machine gun fire by militiamen who use a patrol boat donated by the Italian government in 2018 to do this dirty work, responded by sanctioning the Mare Jonio. This provision says that it is the fault of the Mare Jonio if these people escaped from their Libyan captors – continued Casarini -. This administrative detention is shameful and unacceptable on the part of the Italian government.” “The Italian government, instead of protecting an Italian ship, supports criminal actions by producing retaliation”, the anti-Meloni attack.