An Italian judge on Friday April 19th cleared three migrant sea rescue charities that had been accused of abetting irregular immigration in complicity with human traffickers. The case had been running for seven years.
A pre-trial judge in Trapani, Sicily, said there were no grounds to proceed against any of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Save the Children or Germany’s Jugend Rettet.
The NGOs had always denied any collusion with traffickers and had rebutted accusations from Italian politicians of acting as “sea taxis” for migrants.
“These unfounded accusations have attempted to tarnish the work of humanitarian search and rescue teams for years,” said MSF’s International President Christos Christou, adding that “they were intended to remove vessels from the sea and to counter their efforts of saving lives and bearing witness. Now these accusations have collapsed.”
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has accused the rescue NGOs of acting as “ferry boats” for migrants, and her government has passed legislation to curb their activities, including through the impounding of their vessels.
In 2017, Trapani prosecutors seized Jugend Rettet’s rescue boat, the Iuventa, saying they had found “serious evidence” of encounters at sea between its crew members and Libyan traffickers. The prosecutors launched similar charges against Save the Children and MSF, but did not seize their vessels. Following the accusations, Jugend Rettet and Save the Children stopped Mediterranean sea rescues, but MSF continued.
In the year to date, around 16,000 migrants have arrived on Italian shores, compared to 35,000 in the same period of 2023.
The NGOs have pointed out several times that their ships are responsible for but a small fraction of sea rescues in the central Mediterranean – about 4.2%. National Coast Guards and merchant ships are responsible for a greater number.
