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Tag Archives: migration
‘Wonka’ Sweet With $43M Overseas Debut; ’Migration’ Swoops Into First Markets; IMAX Tops $1B Global For 2023 – International Box Office – Deadline
- ‘Wonka’ Sweet With $43M Overseas Debut; ’Migration’ Swoops Into First Markets; IMAX Tops $1B Global For 2023 – International Box Office Deadline
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Australia’s offer of climate migration to Tuvalu residents is groundbreaking – and could be a lifeline across the Pacific – The Conversation Australia & New Zealand
- Australia’s offer of climate migration to Tuvalu residents is groundbreaking – and could be a lifeline across the Pacific The Conversation Australia & New Zealand
- Australia Offers Climate Refuge to Tuvalu Citizens, but Not All The New York Times
- Australia offers refuge to Tuvaluans as rising sea levels threaten Pacific archipelago FRANCE 24 English
- Vantage | 1.2 billion climate refugees by 2050: Time for world to recognise them, increase funding Firstpost
- Australia offers to help Tuvalu residents escape rising seas Honolulu Star-Advertiser
- View Full Coverage on Google News
China’s ‘great migration’ kicks-off under shadow of COVID
SHANGHAI, Jan 7 (Reuters) – China on Saturday marked the first day of “chun yun”, the 40-day period of Lunar New Year travel known pre-pandemic as the world’s largest annual migration of people, bracing for a huge increase in travellers and the spread of COVID-19 infections.
This Lunar New Year public holiday, which officially runs from Jan. 21, will be the first since 2020 without domestic travel restrictions.
Over the last month China has seen the dramatic dismantling of its “zero-COVID” regime following historic protests against a policy that included frequent testing, restricted movement, mass lockdowns and heavy damage to the world’s No.2 economy.
Investors are hoping that the reopening will eventually reinvigorate a $17-trillion economy suffering its lowest growth in nearly half a century.
But the abrupt changes have exposed many of China’s 1.4 billion population to the virus for the first time, triggering a wave of infections that is overwhelming some hospitals, emptying pharmacy shelves of medicines and causing long lines to form at crematoriums.
The Ministry of Transport said on Friday that it expects more than 2 billion passengers to take trips over the next 40 days, an increase of 99.5% year-on-year and reaching 70.3% of trip numbers in 2019.
There was mixed reaction online to that news, with some comments hailing the freedom to return to hometowns and celebrate the Lunar New Year with family for the first time in years.
Many others, however, said they would not travel this year, with worry of infecting elderly relatives a common theme.
“I dare not go back to my hometown, for fear of bringing the poison back,” said one such comment on the Twitter-like Weibo.
There are widespread concerns that the great migration of workers in cities to their hometowns will cause a surge in infections in smaller towns and rural areas that are less well-equipped with ICU beds and ventilators to deal with them.
Authorities say they are boosting grassroots medical services, opening more rural fever clinics and instituting a “green channel” for high risk patients, especially elderly people with underlying health conditions, to be transferred from villages directly to higher level hospitals.
“China’s rural areas are wide, the population is large, and the per capita medical resources are relatively insufficient,” National Health Commission spokesman Mi Feng said on Saturday.
“It’s necessary to provide convenient services, accelerate vaccination for the elderly in rural areas and the construction of grassroots lines of defense.”
INFECTION PEAK REACHED
Some analysts are now saying the current wave of infections may have already peaked.
Ernan Cui, an analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics in Beijing, cited several online surveys as indicating that rural areas were already more widely exposed to COVID infections than initially thought, with an infection peak already reached in most regions, noting there was “not much difference between urban and rural areas.”
On Sunday China will reopen its border with Hong Kong and will also end a requirement for travellers coming from abroad to quarantine. That effectively opens the door for many Chinese to travel abroad for the first time since borders slammed shut nearly three years ago, without fear of having to quarantine on their return.
Jillian Xin, who has three children and who lives in Hong Kong, said she was “incredibly excited” about the border opening, especially as it means seeing family in Beijing more easily.
“For us, the border opening means my kids can finally meet their grandparents for the first time since the pandemic began,” she said. “Two of our children have never been able to see their grandpa, so we cannot wait for them to meet.”
China’s surge in cases has caused concern internationally and more than a dozen countries are now demanding COVID tests from travellers from China. The World Health Organisation said on Wednesday that China’s COVID data underrepresents the number of hospitalisations and deaths from the disease.
Chinese officials and state media have defended the handling of the outbreak, playing down the severity of the surge and denouncing foreign travel requirements for its residents.
On Saturday in Hong Kong, people who had made appointments had to queue for about 90 minutes at a centre for PCR tests needed for travel to countries including mainland China.
TREATMENT TO THE FORE
For much of the pandemic, China poured resources into a vast PCR testing program to track and trace COVID-19 cases, but the focus is now shifting to vaccines and treatment.
In Shanghai, for example, the city government on Friday announced an end to free PCR tests for residents from Jan. 8.
A circular published by four government ministries Saturday signalled a reallocation of financial resources to treatment, outlining a plan for public finances to subsidise 60% of treatment costs until March 31.
Meanwhile, sources told Reuters that China is in talks with Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) to secure a licence that will allow domestic drugmakers to manufacture and distribute a generic version of the U.S. firm’s COVID antiviral drug Paxlovid in China.
Many Chinese have been attempting to buy the drug abroad and have it shipped to China.
On the vaccine front, China’s CanSino Biologics Inc (6185.HK) announced it has begun trial production for its COVID mRNA booster vaccine, known as CS-2034.
China has relied on nine domestically-developed vaccines approved for use, including inactivated vaccines, but none have been adapted to target the highly-transmissible Omicron variant and its offshoots currently in circulation.
The overall vaccination rate in the country is above 90%, but the rate for adults who have had booster shots drops to 57.9%, and to 42.3% for people aged 80 and older, according to government data released last month.
China reported three new COVID deaths in the mainland for Friday, bringing its official virus death toll since the pandemic began to 5,267, one of the lowest in the world.
International health experts believe Beijing’s narrow definition of COVID deaths does not reflect a true toll, and some predict more than a million deaths this year.
Reporting by Casey Hall in Shanghai, Julie Zhu in Hong Kong and Kevin Huang
Additional reporting by Jindong Zhang
Editing by Tony Munroe and Frances Kerry
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
‘Sea monster’ fossils offer signs of ichthyosaur migration 230 million years ago
The bones found at the Nevada site come from the giant ichthyosaur Shonisaurus, which resembled an enormous, out-of-shape dolphin. Shonisaurus glided barge-like thousands of miles through an ocean known as Panthalassa, the ancient version of today’s Pacific, to breed and deliver their offspring, according to a new study in Current Biology.
The finding offers a rare window into the behaviors of prehistoric animals, something that is not always captured by individual fossils. It raises the possibility that further clues embedded in sediment and soil may offer a deeper understanding of marine reptiles that inhabited the planet long before humans.
The earliest known evidence of migration dates back more than 300 million years to ancient Bandringa sharks with long spoon bill-shaped snouts and prehistoric fish with armored plates. Today billions of animals migrate, including species as diverse as hummingbirds and humpback whales, monarch butterflies and blue wildebeests.
Clues from similar fossils found in other regions suggest that Shonisaurus migrated to central Nevada from parts of modern-day California, Alaska and New Mexico.
If so, that behavior could link the prehistoric Shonisaurus, the largest creature to travel the oceans in the Triassic period, with modern giants — the blue whales observed today with their calves in the Gulf of California. Whales tend to migrate to warmer waters to give birth, then to cooler waters that are rich in nutrients.
“One has to wonder if the same ecological rules are at play even though there are over 200 million years between [whales and Shonisauruses],” said Nicholas D. Pyenson, one of the new paper’s authors who works in the department of paleobiology at the National Museum of Natural History.
Not all experts in the field believe Pyenson and his colleagues have solved the mystery surrounding the great abundance of Shonisaurus bones at the site and the absolute absence of any other ichthyosaurs.
“This study is probably not the final word, but it’s a good step forward,” cautioned Martin Sander, a professor of paleontology at the University of Bonn in Germany and research associate at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
Sander, who was not involved in the study, added “I’m not entirely convinced. It’s a good idea but it’s awfully difficult to prove.”
The skeletons at Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park in West Union Canyon show that the Shonisaurus grew up to 50 feet, five times the length of a modern dolphin, and weighed about 22 tons, the equivalent of three large elephants. Their offspring were only a few feet long.
Charles L. Camp, a University of California at Berkeley paleontologist, was first to excavate the alternating layers of limestone and mudstone at the site in the 1950s. He immediately wondered what might account for the large cluster of Shonisaurus skeletons.
“He thought it might be a mass stranding,” like those involving whales, said Neil P. Kelley, another of the paper’s authors and an assistant professor in Vanderbilt University’s department of earth and environmental sciences.
But the fossil evidence disproves that hypothesis, showing that the skeletons had settled underwater far from shore.
The effort to explain why Shonisaurus bones have so far been the only ichthyosaur fossils discovered at the Nevada site became a feat of scientific detective work. Researchers combined 3D scanning and geochemistry with more traditional tools such as museum collections, field notes, photographs and archival materials.
They came to view migration as the most likely scenario after eliminating other possibilities. Testing the sediment revealed an absence of the mercury levels that would have signaled volcanic activity, which is believed to have caused the largest mass extinction 252 million years ago.
Researchers were also able to eliminate the possibility that a deadly algal bloom poisoned the marine reptiles.
In the end, only the migration scenario appeared to make sense.
“Shonisaurus definitely occurs at other locations so the genus had a broad geographic range, and it is very reasonable that these large individuals traveled long distances, as most large marine vertebrates do today,” Kelley said. “It should be possible to gather additional data in the future which could test the hypotheses we present in the paper, including migration.”
At least two other mysteries remain surrounding the ancient marine reptiles called ichthyosaurs.
Sander at the University of Bonn said ichthyosaurs, like sea turtles, were originally land animals of some kind, “but they appear in the fossil record as fully blown open ocean animals. We don’t have the right rocks to show how the ichthyosaurs went to the sea.”
Also, while Shonisaurus went extinct about 200 million years ago at the end of the Triassic, “smaller ichthyosaurs survived into the Jurassic and beyond with the entire group going extinct around 88 million years ago in the Cretaceous,” Kelley said. Why the small ichthyosaurs survived and the giants didn’t is not clear.
Pyenson cannot help but think that the ultimate fate of Shonisaurus carries a lesson for modern-day blue whales, and other cetaceans, many of which are now classified as endangered.
“We should want a world,” he said, “with these large ocean giants in it.”
Nigerian stowaways found on ship’s rudder in Canary Islands
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Three stowaways were found on a ship’s rudder in the Canary Islands after an 11-day ocean voyage from Nigeria, Spain’s maritime rescue service said.
The men found on the Alithini II oil tanker at the Las Palmas port on Monday afternoon appeared to have symptoms of dehydration and hypothermia and were transferred to hospitals on the island for medical attention, according to Spain’s Maritime Safety and Rescue Society.
The survivors were all from Nigeria, the Spanish government’s delegation in the Canary Islands told The Associated Press. One of them remained hospitalized Tuesday.
The maritime rescue agency, known in Spain as Salvamento Marítimo. shared a photo of the three men sitting on top of the rudder under the ship’s massive hull with their feet hanging only a few centimeters (inches) from the water.
According to the MarineTraffic tracking website, the Malta-flagged vessel left Lagos, Nigeria on Nov. 17 and arrived in Las Palmas on Monday. The distance between the ports is roughly 4,600 kilometers (2,800 miles).
Other people were previously discovered clinging to rudders while risking their lives to reach the Spanish islands located off northwest Africa. Salvamento Maritimo has dealt with six similar cases in the last two years, according to Sofía Hernández who heads the service’s coordination center in Las Palmas.
Migrants may seek cover inside the box-like structure around the rudder, Hernández explained, but are still vulnerable to bad weather and rough seas. “It is very dangerous,” she told the AP.
A ship’s fluctuating draft level – the vertical distance between the waterline and the bottom of the hull- is another hazard for such stowaways. The levels vary depending on the weight of the cargo onboard.
“We are talking about several meters difference. This part could have been perfectly submerged in the water,” Hernández said.
In 2020 14-year-old Nigerian boy was interviewed by Spain’s El País newspaper after surviving two weeks on a ship’s rudder. He had also departed from Lagos.
“It’s not the first time nor will it be the last,” tweeted Txema Santana, a journalist and migration advisor to the regional government of the Canary Islands.
In cases like these, the ship owner is responsible for bringing the stowaways back to their point of departure, according to the Spanish government delegation in the islands.
Thousands of migrants and refugees from North and West Africa have reached the Canary Islands irregularly in recent years. Most make the dangerous Atlantic crossing on crowded boats after departing from the coast of Morocco, the Western Sahara, Mauritania and even Senegal.
More than 11,600 people have reached the Spanish islands by boat so far this year, according to figures released by Spain’s Interior Ministry.
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Follow AP’s coverage of global migration at https://apnews.com/hub/migration
Rishi Sunak Plans Curbs On Foreign Students To Control Migration: Report
The Sunak government has promised to cut net migration in the UK. (File)
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will be considering “all options”, including reducing the number of foreign students, in his bid to bring down the rising net migration in the United Kingdom, according to a report by the BBC.
Mr Sunak will be looking into imposing curbs on foreign students pursuing so-called “low quality” degrees and bringing in dependents, the report said, quoting a Downing Street spokesperson. The spokesperson did not, however, define what is a “low quality” degree.
The UK government’s concerns for rising migration have been set off by the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures this week that showed a huge jump in the number of migrants. Net migration to the UK rose from 173,000 in 2021, to 504,000 this year – an increase of 331,000.
International students, especially Indians who took over the Chinese for the first time to make up the majority of student visas, were a big contributor to this spike.
“We’re considering all options to make sure the immigration system is delivering. The prime minister is fully committed to bringing overall numbers down,” Mr Sunak’s spokesman had said on Friday.
But controlling the number of migrants by restricting the number of foreign students presents a tricky task. British universities lean on higher fees from international students to offset the money, they lose by charging British students a lower fee, with some universities even risking bankruptcy if restrictions were imposed on so-called low-quality degrees, the report said.
An Indian community-led students’ organisation on Friday urged the government to remove international students from the country’s immigration statistics. “Students who are in the UK temporarily, should not be counted as migrants. International students, of which Indians are the biggest cohort, bring a net revenue of GBP 30 billion into the British economy,” said Sanam Arora, Chair of National Indian Students and Alumni Union (NISAU) UK.
The Sunak government has promised to cut net migration in the UK with India-origin Home Secretary Suella Braverman earlier complaining about Indian students overstaying in the country. “I have concerns about having an open borders migration policy with India because I don’t think that’s what people voted for with Brexit. Look at migration in this country – the largest group of people who overstay are Indian migrants,” she had said.
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Economies boom with Russian wealth, migration
Russians cross the border between Russia and Georgia days after President Vladimir Putin announced a mobilization drive on September 21.
Daro Sulakauri | Getty Images News | Getty Images
As many economies reel from the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a select few countries are benefiting from an influx of Russian migrants and their accompanying wealth.
Georgia, a small former Soviet republic on Russia’s southern border, is among several Caucasus and surrounding countries, including Armenia and Turkey, to have seen their economies boom amid the ongoing turmoil.
At least 112,000 Russians have emigrated to Georgia this year, according to reports. A first wave of almost 43,000 arrived following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, while a second wave — whose number is harder to determine — entered after Putin’s military mobilization drive in September.
The country’s initial wave accounts for almost a quarter (23.4%) of all emigres out of Russia up to September, according to an online survey of 2,000 Russian migrants conducted by research group Ponars Eurasia. The majority of the remaining Russian migrants have fled to Turkey (24.9%), Armenia (15.1%) and uncited “other” countries (19%).
The influx has had an outsized impact on Georgia’s economy — already on the up following a Covid-19 slowdown — and the Georgian lari, which has risen 15% against a strong U.S. dollar so far this year.
We’ve had double-digit growth, which no one expected.
Mikheil Kukava
head of economic and social policy, Institute for Development of Freedom of Information
The International Monetary Fund now expects Georgia’s economy to grow by 10% in 2022, having revised up its estimate again this month and more than tripled its 3% forecast from April.
“A surge in immigration and financial inflows triggered by the war,” were among the reasons cited for the uptick. The IMF also sees fellow host country Turkey growing 5% this year, while Armenia is set to surge 11% on the back of “large inflows of external income, capital, and labor into the country.”
Georgia has benefitted from a dramatic surge in capital inflows this year, primarily from Russia. Russia accounted for three-fifths (59.6%) of Georgia’s foreign capital inflows in October alone — the total volumes of which rose 725% year-on-year.
Between February and October, Russians transferred $1.412 billion to Georgian accounts — more than four times the $314 million transferred over the same period in 2021 — according to the National Bank of Georgia.
Meanwhile, Russians opened more than 45,000 bank accounts in Georgia up to September, almost doubling the number of Russian-held accounts in the country.
‘Highly active’ migrants
Georgia’s strategic location and its historic and economic ties with Russia make it an obvious entry point for Russian migrants. Meanwhile, its liberal immigration policy allows foreigners to live, work and set up businesses without the need for a visa.
Like Armenia and Turkey, too, the country has resisted enforcing Western sanctions on the pariah state, leaving Russians and their money to move freely across its border.
Turkey, for its part, has granted residence permits to 118,626 Russians this year, according to government data, while one-fifth of its foreign property sales in 2022 have been by Russians. The Armenian government did not provide data on its migration figures or property purchases when contacted by CNBC.
Still, the economic impact has surprised even experts.
Both Ukrainian refugees and Russian emigres have fled to Georgia, a former Soviet republic with its own history of conflict with Russia, following that country’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.
Daro Sulakauri | Getty Images News | Getty Images
“We’ve had double-digit growth, which no one expected,” Mikheil Kukava, head of economic and social policy at Georgian think tank the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI), told CNBC via zoom.
To be sure, a significant proportion of the uptick comes after growth was decimated during the coronavirus pandemic. But Kukava said it is also indicative of the economic activity of the new arrivals. And while an inflow of tens of thousands may appear minimal — even for a country like Georgia, with a modest population of 3.7 million — it is more than 10 times the 10,881 Russians who arrived through all of 2021.
“They’re highly active. 42,000 randomly selected Russian citizens wouldn’t have had this impact on the Georgian economy,” Kukava said, referring to the first wave of migrants, many of them wealthy and highly educated. The second wave, by comparison, were more likely to be motivated to leave by “fear,” he said, than economic means.
‘Boom turned bang’
One of the most visible impacts of the new arrivals has been on Georgia’s housing market. Property prices in the capital, Tbilisi, rose 20% year-on-year in September and transactions were up 30%, according to Georgian bank TBC. Rents soared 74% over the year.
Elsewhere, 12,093 new Russian companies were registered in Georgia from January and November this year, more than 13 times the total number set up in 2021, according to Georgia’s National Statistics Office.
The Georgian lari is now trading at a three-year high.
The Kremlin could use their presence as a pretext for further interference or aggression.
However, not everyone is enthusiastic about the new outlook for Georgia. As an ex-Soviet republic that fought a short war with Russia in 2008, Georgia’s relationship with Russia is complex, and some Georgians fear the socio-political impact the arrivals could have.
Indeed, Washington, D.C.-based think tank the Hudson Institute has warned that “the Kremlin could use their presence as a pretext for further interference or aggression.”
IDFI’s Kukava worries that could also mark a “boom turned bang” for the Georgian economy: “‘Boom turned bang’ is when the Russian plutocratic government and this pariah country comes after them,” he said, referring to Russian emigres. “That’s the basic concern in Georgia.”
“Even though they are not a threat per se,” Kukava continued, describing the majority of migrants as “new generation” Russians, “the Kremlin might use this as a pretext to come and protect them. That’s what outweighs any economic effect that might have.”
Bracing for a slowdown
Forecasters appear to be taking that uncertainty into account. Both the Georgian government and the National Bank have said they expect growth to slow in 2023.
The IMF also sees growth falling to around 5% next year.
“Growth and inflation are expected to slow in 2023, on the back of moderating external inflows, deteriorating global economic and financial conditions,” the IMF said in its note earlier this month.
“[That] indicates that the Georgian government does not expect they are going to stay,” Kukava said of the Russian arrivals.
According to Ponars Eurasia’s survey, conducted between March and April, less than half (43%) of Russian migrants said at the time that they planned to stay in their initial host country long term. Over a third (35%) were undecided, almost one-fifth (18%) intended to move elsewhere, and just 3% planned to return to Russia.
“We are better off — both the government and the National Bank — if we don’t base our economic assumptions on the basis that these people will stay,” Kukava added.
Migration talks mark progress in tense U.S.-Cuba relations
HAVANA (AP) — Following a series of talks on migration with the Biden administration, Cuba said Tuesday that it will receive deportation flights from the United States that had been stalled in the pandemic — and said it was open to continuing dialogue with Washington.
The agreement comes amid one of the largest migrations from Cuba to the U.S. in decades.
In October, Cubans replaced Venezuelans as the second most numerous nationality after Mexicans arriving at the border. U.S. authorities stopped Cubans 28,848 times, up 10% from the previous month, U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows.
That exodus is fueled by deepening and compounding crises in the Caribbean nation, which suffers from shortages of basic goods and lengthy power outages.
The two governments have had a tense relationship for 60 years — and that grew more hostile when former President Donald Trump tightened American sanctions on the island.
But migration appears to have become a meeting point for Cuba and the Biden administration, which held talks in Havana for the second time in the span of a week on Tuesday.
“It was a useful meeting and it contributed to the mutual objective, committed to achieving a safe, regular and ordered migration,” said Cuba’s Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Carlos Cossío in a news conference Tuesday.
Cossío added there was “an obvious need” for two countries so geographically close to maintain a dialogue despite their differences.
Leading the U.S. delegation was Emily Mendrala, deputy assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs.
The State Department also expressed optimism about cooperation in a brief release Tuesday afternoon, acknowledging the meeting.
“Engaging in these talks underscores our commitment to pursuing constructive discussions with the government of Cuba where appropriate to advance U.S. interests,” the statement said.
The talks follow a number of friendly — or at least non-hostile — exchanges between the two governments in recent months.
The U.S. government recently announced it would resume visa and consular services on the island in January. Those had been stalled after a series of health incidents involving U.S. diplomats starting in 2017.
When Hurricane Ian ravaged the island in September, the Biden administration announced it would provide $2 million for recovery efforts.
In August, the administration also provided 43 fire suits to Cuba following the blaze in an oil storage facility.
Nearly 1,000 migrants stranded on board NGO ships as storm hits | Migration News
Three charity-run vessels in the Mediterranean Sea are awaiting permission to disembark in Italy or Malta, as those on board need urgent assistance amid dwindling supplies and worsening weather conditions.
The vessels operated by Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF), SOS Mediterranee and SOS Humanity, have been at sea for more than a week, carrying nearly 1,000 people in total.
Italy’s new right-wing government has acknowledged the receipt of their requests to disembark but has stopped short of greenlighting their entrance into port.
“The latest request was made yesterday evening but we received no response,” Riccardo Gatti, MSF team leader on board the Geo Barents, told Al Jazeera via video message.
Similar requests forwarded to the Maltese government have gone unacknowledged.
Gatti said on Saturday the Geo Barents had entered Italian waters to find shelter from an incoming storm, carrying 572 people on board, including an 11-month-old and three pregnant women.
MSF media adviser Candida Lobes said water was being rationed and food supplies were also dwindling. Due to overcrowding, respiratory and skin infections were also spreading.
“The situation is simply unacceptable,” Lobes said.
International obligations
European maritime-humanitarian organisation SOS Mediterranee has called on authorities to comply with international obligations and provide a predictable system of disembarkation.
“Survivors retrieved from distress at sea must no longer be traded into political debates,” the organisation said in a statement on Thursday.
Elisa Brivio, a press officer at SOS Mediterranee, told Al Jazeera that 234 people were on board its Ocean Viking ship, including 40 unaccompanied minors.
“Not everyone can sleep below deck, we prioritise women and children,” Brivio said. “The others are sleeping outside and yesterday we installed some protective tents to shield them from the winds and the storm.”
Among those rescued, many bear the signs of torture and mistreatment.
Till Rummenhohl, head of operations at SOS Humanity, said the 179 people on board the Humanity 1 were “fleeing from detention camps in Libya, where they faced great violence”.
Should no country offer a post of safety, they may be pushed back into international waters.
“[This] would be a clear breach of international law and the Geneva Convention,” Rummenhohl told Al Jazeera. “It’s their human right to apply for asylum and seek safety.”
Italy’s far-right government
Italy last month formed its first far-right-led government since the end of World War II, with Giorgia Meloni becoming the first woman to serve as prime minister.
Rome has insisted that the countries whose flags these NGO boats are flying should bear responsibility for the migrants and refugees on board.
The Norwegian flag-bearing Ocean Viking and Geo Barents and the German-flagged Humanity 1 have been prevented from docking, while Italian patrols, including one carrying 456 people that arrived in Calabria on Thursday, were allowed to disembark.
Italy’s new interior minister, Matteo Piantedosi, told local media the government had intended to give flag-bearing countries an “immediate signal”.
“We cannot bear the burden of migrants collected at sea by foreign vessels operating systematically without any coordination with local authorities,” he said.
Piantedosi drafted new measures, alleging that the non-governmental groups violated procedure by not properly coordinating their rescues, a step setting the groundwork for Italy to close the ports.
Charities have denied circumventing procedures and say it is their duty to rescue people in distress at sea.
The German embassy this week urged Italy to provide swift help, saying NGO ships made an important contribution to saving lives at sea.
Norway said it bears no responsibility under human rights conventions or the law of the sea towards people taken on board private Norwegian-flagged vessels.
According to the United Nations refugee agency, coastal states such as Italy and Malta are obligated to accept people from rescue ships “as soon as practicable” and governments should cooperate to provide a place of safety for survivors.
“It is frankly absurd that the Italian and Maltese governments have not yet offered them a place of safety,” Matteo De Bellis, a researcher on asylum and migration at Amnesty International, told Al Jazeera.
“This incident signals a step back by Italian authorities in particular since the new government is resurrecting policies that we have seen implemented already in 2018 and 2019,” De Bellis added, referring to a “closed ports” policy implemented by then-Interior Minister and far-right leader Matteo Salvini.
“These policies were and continue to be in breach of international law,” he said.
“It is clear that European states must share responsibility for assisting people in need, but it is equally clear that Italy and Malta must cooperate in good faith to ensure that people rescued at sea are provided a place of safety.”
