Open letter from Mediterranea Saving Humans to the Government

To the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni;

To the Council of Ministers of the Italian Government

and p.c. To the President of the Republic Hon. Sergio Mattarella

We are writing to you as Mediterranea, a legally constituted Italian association that manages the operations of the Italian-flagged civilian rescue vessel 'Mare Jonio'.

Since the Cutro massacre, more than 100 people - men, women and children - have lost their lives in new shipwrecks in our waters. Beyond any consideration, this is a humanitarian tragedy that our country and Europe cannot dismiss as a "fatal consequence of the current situation". Of course, everything can be explained with sophisticated, though often diametrically opposed, analyses of how we got here and why so many lives have been lost. But what we must do instead is to focus, here and now, on a great and choral immediate action, of institutions and civil society, of an entire country, to prevent, first and foremost, further innocent deaths from staining our history and our sea with blood.

We address to you, with all possible humility, an appeal that comes from the depths of our conscience:

No more war on NGOs, on civilian lifeboats. Let us work together to save as many lives as possible at sea. Let us create a synergetic action in the face of this imperative - save! - which could lead the European Union to break its silence on this issue and launch a coordinated rescue mission in the face of what promises to be a terrible summer in terms of risks at sea.

We ask you to put above everything - political positions, long-term strategies, hostility towards us - the supreme good of rescuing those who are blameless and ask for our help. Please honour the history of this country, its millenary tradition of welcome and immigration. To take away the means available and usable for rescue at sea at this time is tantamount to condemning hundreds of people to death.

Giving control of the largest rescue zone in the Mediterranean to the self-proclaimed 'Libyan coastguard' will not protect the people trying to escape this hell. You know better than we do that Libya is not a 'place of safety' and that any 'rescue' of these people is in fact an arrest and deportation to a place where human rights violations are systematic and appalling. This is in defiance of the Geneva Convention on Refugees.

To think that Tunisia, with the crisis it is facing and after Saied's racist incitement against sub-Saharan refugees, can 'save' someone who is fleeing from there in terror is implausible.

We remind you that all those who are returned to these countries, if they are not killed first, will try again, fattening the great mafias of human trafficking. We therefore ask you to coordinate, as provided for in the National SAR Plan, a major action with military and civilian means to combat this announced and ongoing slaughter, as a great country would do.

First save, then discuss.

Yours sincerely,

Mediterranea Saving Humans