Migrant Taxi NGO Prepares Fifth Vessel To Operate in the Mediterranean

REGGIO CALABRIA, CALABRIA, ITALY - 2022/09/17: The vessel Sea Watch 3 arrives at the port
Valeria Ferraro/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Chris Tomlinson

The German-based migrant taxi NGO Sea-Watch has announced it is preparing to launch its fifth vessel to the Mediterranean to pick up migrants and bring them to Europe.

Sea-Watch announced their new vessel, the SeaWatch 5, was on its way to Hamburg before being prepared to be deployed in the Mediterranean Seas where the group currently operates and picks up migrants under the pretext of performing rescues at sea.

“Before she is finally prepared as a civil rescue ship and deployed to the Mediterranean, she will come to her home port for the ship’s christening. Thanks to all our supporters – without you, this ship would not be on the way!” the NGO wrote on Twitter.

The ship is just the latest NGO vessel expected to be deployed in the Mediterranean Sea and joins several others that have already picked up and dropped off over 10,000 migrants this year.

Around 1,000 migrants are currently on board various NGO vessels, such as the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) vessel Geo Barents which, alone, has 572 currently aboard, the Italian newspaper Il Giornale reports.

The new Sea-Watch vessel comes as Italy’s new Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi has promised to halt the activities of NGOs picking up migrants and bringing them to Italian territory.

Piantedosi announced last week that he would be issuing a directive to two vessels the Ocean Viking and the Humanity 1, claiming their conduct was not “in line with the spirit of European and Italian rules on security and border control and the fight against illegal immigration.”

The Interior Minister also stated that he would be working along with new Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani to speak with Germany and Norway, whose flags the two vessels operate under.

“I wanted to strike a blow to reaffirm a principle: the responsibility of the flag states of a ship. Does this principle apply only to Italy and not to Germany and Norway?” Piantedosi stated.

Prior to the formation of the new government under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, some predicted that as many as 100,000 migrants may enter Europe illegally before the end of 2022. So far, according to statistics from the UNHCR, over 83,000 migrants have arrived by sea so far.

 

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com.

 

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