Proactiva’s rescue ship was being held on court orders on Monday in the Sicilian port of Pozzallo, where it arrived on Saturday carrying some 200 migrants that it had picked up from hazardous dinghies in international waters off Libya.
According to the Italian coast guard, Libyan authorities are responsible for patrolling the area and taking in people rescued there, under a migration agreement between Italy and Libya designed to reduce the number of crossings from North Africa to southern Europe.
The group was not aware that the zone in question was under the Libyan coast guard’s authority and did nothing wrong, one of its lawyers told Reuters. According to another Proactiva spokesperson, the Italian coast guard asked the NGO to go to the migrants’ aid in the first place.
However, Italy’s coast guard stated that international norms usually require ships to wait for their country of origin to arrange where migrants rescued at sea should be taken. The Open Arms sailed for Italy while still awaiting directions from the Spanish government and despite the fact that it was closer to Malta at the time, the coast guard said.
https://www.thelocal.it/20180319/italy-seizes-ngo-boat-proactiva-open-arms-libya-migrants