Following the disembarkation on Tuesday evening of 92 people — including 31 unaccompanied minors — the State Police and the Port Authority of Porto Empedocle, acting on behalf of the Ministry of the Interior, served the captain and shipowner of the vessel MEDITERRANEA with an official report accusing them of allegedly violating the so-called Piantedosi Decree.
The accusation refers to “failing to reach the assigned port of disembarkation without delay,” which, according to the Ministry’s orders, should have been the distant port of Livorno — 630 nautical miles away, nearly 1,200 kilometers, and over four days of navigation from the rescue site.

This accusation comes despite the fact that both the ship’s doctor and CIRM Telemedicine, the medical authority appointed by the maritime authorities, certified that none of the rescued individuals were fit to endure an additional three days of navigation. Moreover, it was the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Juvenile Court of Palermo that formally requested the Ministries of the Interior and Transport to authorize the disembarkation of minors in Porto Empedocle.

It is increasingly evident that the right to life and health of those rescued at sea is not a priority for the Italian government — nor is respect for international and national law, or for the decisions of the judiciary.

What drives the imposition of these unjust and unlawful measures is an inhumane obsession: to obstruct civilian sea rescue operations.
The first serious consequence of this official notice is that our ship, MEDITERRANEA, which was ready to set out again on a new search and rescue mission, is now chained and detained in Porto Empedocle.

We will have to wait for the Prefect of Agrigento to determine how many weeks or months the vessel will remain under administrative detention before we can file an appeal. In the meantime, we are being unjustly prevented from saving more lives at sea.

We will not allow these unlawful and deadly policies to prevail.