“The next ship can turn around and go back where it came from because our limit has been reached!”
(Matteo Salvini, unbowed)
See my previous post on the stalemate here.
And once again a photo worth a thousand words as anyone dealing with the migrants wears protective clothing/masks. See here.
Now this from Reuters:
Italy disembarks stranded migrants, Salvini under investigation
CATANIA, Italy (Reuters) – Italy on Sunday disembarked all 150 migrants from a rescue ship that had been docked for five days in a Sicilian port, ending the migrants’ ordeal and a bitter stand-off between Rome’s anti-establishment government and its European Union partners.
The migrants, mainly from Eritrea, had been stranded in the port of Catania since Monday because the government refused to let them off the boat until other EU states agreed to take some of them in.
This is big! We should be telling the Catholic Church in America that they need to spend their own money for the refugees they want to place in your towns and cities.
Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said Albania had offered to accept 20 of the migrants and Ireland 20-25, while the rest would be housed by Italy’s Catholic Church “at zero cost” to the Italian taxpayer.
“The church has opened its heart and opened its wallet,” Salvini, from the right-wing League party, told supporters at a rally in Pinzolo in northern Italy on Saturday evening. [LOL! will they be housed at the Vatican?—ed]
Salvini, who has led a popular crackdown against immigration since the government took office in June, also announced that he had been placed under investigation by a Sicilian prosecutor for abuse of office, kidnapping and illegal arrest.
“Being investigated for defending the rights of Italians is a disgrace,” he said.
[….]
More than 650,000 people have reached Italian shores since 2014, and even though the numbers have fallen steeply in the last year, Rome says it will not let any more rescue ships dock unless the migrants are shared out around the EU.
“The next ship can turn around and go back where it came from because our limit has been reached,” Salvini said.
Go here for more on Italy and here for my complete ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive.
Endnote: I’m very sad for Ireland.