ROME: A charity rescue vessel on Saturday brought 41 shipwrecked migrants into port in Lampedusa, the second boat to defy far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini’s bid to close Italian ports to them.

Mediterranea’s Italian-flagged Alex arrived in port where a strong police presence was waiting for them but everyone remained on board after waiting nearly two days with the rescued migrants and asylum-seekers on the small sailboat’s deck.

“In view of the intolerable hygiene conditions aboard, the Alex has declared a state of emergency and is sailing towards Lampedusa, the only possible safe port for landing.” Mediterranea said in a tweet earlier.

Italian populist Salvini last month issued a decree that would bring fines of up to 50,000 euros ($57,000) for the captain, owner and operator of a vessel “entering Italian territorial waters without authorisation”.

Salvini tweeted after the Alex docked that the charity workers were “jackals... will they go unpunished also?” Authorities on Lampedusa last week seized another rescue ship belonging to German aid group Sea-Watch after it forced its way into port with dozens of rescued migrants on board and arrested its captain, Carola Rackete.

An Italian judge this week ordered her freed as she had been acting to save lives, a decision which sparked Salvini’s ire.

Two other investigations, on charges of helping people smugglers and resisting the authorities are still underway after she forced her way past Italian customs vessels.

A third rescue ship, German charity Sea-Eye’s vessel Alan Kurdi, carrying 65 shipwrecked migrants rescued off Libya on Saturday arrived and held its position in international waters off Lampedusa.

“We are waiting in international waters off the island of Lampedusa,” Sea-Eye tweeted from the Alan Kurdi.

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer tweeted that Germany was ready to take in some of those rescued “as part of a European-solidarity solution.” Sea-Eye said the 64 men and one woman were rescued from an overloaded blue dinghy lacking sufficient drinking water, and there was no satellite phone or navigation aid on board.

Salvini accuses NGO rescue vessels of helping smugglers and has said Alex should sail for the Maltese capital Valetta after 13 “vulnerable” people were on Friday taken to Lampedusa, leaving 41 on board.

Malta also told the Alex to go to Valletta to disembark the migrants, but Mediterranea said the journey would be too arduous and the boat would likely be seized if it did.

Photographs showed dozens of migrants and asylum-seekers seeking shelter from the sun under survival blankets on the narrow deck of the 18-metre (59-foot) sailboat.

“In these conditions it is impossible to face 15 hours of sailing. We are waiting for Italian or Maltese naval arrangements to take these people on board,” Mediterranea’s Alessandra Sciurba said on Twitter.

She said that while Italy had taken families and pregnant women from the small vessel, “all non-accompanied minors remain on board, including an 11-year-old.” Mediterranea consists mainly of left-wing activists, the avowed enemy of Salvini, who has seen his popularity and that of his Lega party rise thanks to his tough stance against migrant rescue ships.

A poll published in Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper on Saturday said 59 percent of Italians approved of Salvini’s closing ports NGO vessels.

Published in Dawn, July 7th, 2019