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The boat had just disembarked 57 migrants rescued from the sea.
Published on 07/13/2023 13:45
Reading time: 1 min
The ship “Ocean Viking” of the humanitarian NGO SOS Méditerranée in the port of Salerno (Italy). (ELIANO IMPERATO / CONTROL VIA AFP)
The Ocean Viking ship remains docked. The Italian authorities have decided to immobilize the boat belonging to the humanitarian NGO SOS Méditerranée in the port of Civitavecchia, north of Rome (Italy), after having just landed 57 migrants rescued at sea. This administrative action by the guards on the Italian coasts has “an indefinite period” because the inspection that the ship was subjected to revealed “some small technical and administrative problems” according to a press release from SOS Méditerranée.
According to the NGO, one of these issues “unfortunately requires further investigation involving various stakeholders in the certification and the owners” of the ship. For SOS Méditerranée, the Italian authorities have “a restrictive interpretation of the SOLAS Convention, an international agreement that establishes minimum safety criteria for the construction, equipment and operation of ships”. An SOS Méditerranée Italy official, Francesco Creazzo, interviewed by telephone by AFP, explained that the issue raised by the Italian Coast Guard was the number of lifeboats on board the ship.
A previous inspection of the Ocean Viking in 2020 mandated 14 lifeboats, a number calculated based on the number of people rescued rather than the size of the crew. However, the last inspection so far required one specialized operator per lifeboat, i.e. 14 people, with the presence of a single specialized operator no longer sufficient according to this restrictive interpretation by the Italian authorities, according to the NGO. When asked by AFP about the reasons for this immobilization, the Italian Coast Guard did not immediately respond.
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