The Italian Prosecutor Who Wants To Sink Refugee Rescue Boats

[TomSea]

The Italian Prosecutor Who Wants To Sink Refugee Rescue Boats
Amid allegations of collusion with traffickers, charity boats saving migrant lives are under pressure to stop. They aren’t colluding, they say. And they won’t stop.
Barbie Latza Nadeau   03.31.17 3:09 PM ET

ROME — Sicilian prosecutor Carmelo Zuccaro has nothing against migrants and refugees, per se; just against those who save them. He has started a fracas in Italy by leveling charges of serious wrongdoing against the non-governmental organizations whose so-called “charity boats” trawl the Mediterranean searching for migrant and refugee vessels in distress.

Not only does Zuccaro imply that the charities are working directly with traffickers to determine where to pick up migrants at sea, rather than waiting for the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Center in Rome to dispatch them, he also questions who is paying these benevolent organizations.

“I am convinced that it is not always the operational center that calls on the NGOs,” he told a parliamentary committee in Rome this week. “We also need to investigate the evolution of the phenomenon and find out why there has been such a noted proliferation of these ships and how they deal with such high operational costs without having a return in terms of economic profit.”

Continued: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/03/31/the-italian-prosecutor-who-wants-to-sink-refugee-rescue-boats.html

It makes sense to me.