Healthcare charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF; Doctors Without Borders) announced earlier this month that it has ceased operations on board the search and rescue (SAR) vessel Geo Barents, which had been operational since June 2021.
MSF said Italian laws and policies “have made it impossible to continue with the current operational model” and that the organisation will begin a process “to evaluate the best operational model for this challenging environment” with the aim of resuming SAR activities.
In the past two years, Geo Barents faced four sanctions by the Italian authorities, who imposed a total of 160 days detention in port. These sanctions came under the Piantedosi Decree, a law that was introduced by the Italian government in the beginning of 2023.
MSF claims it has become the practice of Italian authorities to assign distant ports, frequently in the north, to disembark people rescued at sea. Since the implementation of the Piantedosi Decree, Geo Barents has spent half a year navigating to and back from distant ports.
Juan Matias Gil, MSF search and rescue representative, said that the organisation has come to the conclusion that it is untenable to operate Geo Barents “under such absurd and senseless Italian laws and policies.”
However, Italian politicians have accused MSF and other rescue charities of facilitating illegal migration by actively seeking out boats to ferry them to Europe.
The politicians said that these charities encourage migrants to attempt to embark on the long voyage to get to Italy, thus leading the latter to expect that rescue at sea is a certainty even under challenging conditions.