In a strange development surrounding the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean, the prosecutor’s office of Ragusa in Sicily has alleged that NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans had received payment from Maersk as a result of a commercial agreement to transfer migrants from chemical/oil products tanker Maersk Etienne, now sailing as Keonamex Victory (IMO 9274642) to the NGO vessel Mare Jonio (IMO 7222669) in September 2020.
A number of migrants were picked up by the tanker on August 4th in the Gulf of Gabes, acting as a Good Samaritan vessel at the request of the Malta Rescue Coordination Centre. The boat was located outside Maltese waters, closer to the Tunisian-Libyan border. However, difficulties then arose, which included a dispute with the Maltese authorities, when the tanker found itself unable to disembark the migrants, even in Malta, which had asked them to pick up the migrants in the first place.
The migrants remained on the products tanker, in difficut conditions, for 37 days, until on September 11th they were transferred to the Mare Jonio, before eventually disembarking at Pozzallo port, Ragusa, Sicily, Italy.
Gard said that in October last year that, in the wake of the Maersk Etienne case, a number of shipping-related associations had sent a joint letter to the EU’s top politicians, including president Ursula Van der Leyen, to urge the EU to provide prompt and predictable disembarkations for people rescued at sea…
