The Open Arms left Mallorca to have restarted to reach again the Sar of Libya area. After the polemics of the last few days about the opportunity to denounce Italy and Libya, Roberto Gatti, head of mission of the vessel, reported that the NGO will not report Italy. “Our complaint is against the captain of the Libyan freighter Triades for failure to rescue and manslaughter, as well as the captain of the Libyan Coast Guard patrol boat and other interested vessels. But the Libyan authorities reply, “we deny and categorically reject the slanders and we will ask for a neutral commission of inquiry”.
There was no shortage of the Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini's response, which he wrote on Facebook, "countermeasure comrades!" Salvini, however, highlighted that the NGO would subject a shipwreck to four days of navigation, bringing it to Spain, "even though we had given availability of docking, for assistance and care, in a Sicilian port ".
The reactions of Libya
Libya is tougher against Open Arms, certain that the phantom denunciation "is part of a systematic campaign led by NGOs". Libya rejects the accusations arguing that, "it is illogical for a Libyan patrol to rescue 165 migrants and leave two women and a child while they went out just to save them". The warning to the Open Arms from the Libyan authorities, "the advice is to operate in Spanish waters where there is a growing influx of illegal migrants from West Africa and Morocco", otherwise there would be a risk of sovereignty, "is bizarre that a Spanish NGO would retrieve illegal migrants from Libyan waters and bring them to Italy, as if Libya and Italy were two nations of the Spanish Crown. Situation that undermines the sovereignty of Libya and Italy ”.