ROME (AP) — Italy’s aviation authority has barred humanitarian migrant rescue groups from using a Sicilian airport to launch search and rescue flights over the Mediterranean, in the government’s latest move to regulate their activities.
An ordinance from ENAC’s western Sicilian office said the flights interfered with the Italian coast guard’s exclusive role in coordinating search and rescue efforts and put migrant lives at risk. Non-governmental rescue groups that continue using the Lampedusa, Sicily airport risk unspecified fines and the seizure of their aircraft, it said.
The ordinance marked a new effort by the government of Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni to crack down on migration from North Africa, a key campaign promise that brought her right-wing coalition to power in 2022.
In addition to targeting smugglers and the migrants themselves, the government has taken a series of measures to complicate the work of humanitarian aid groups that rescue migrants at sea. The government accuses these groups of encouraging risky departures by their presence in the Mediterranean and fuelling the trafficking demand.
The aid groups say they are saving lives in the absence of an adequate European response to the migration problem and have lashed out at the Italian measures, which they say are designed to limit their time at sea.
In addition to occasional law enforcement sequesters of ships and investigations, Italy now assigns rescue ships to ports far from the active search zone and requires them to return to port after each rescue, rather than stay at sea to pick up as many migrants as possible.
The German rescue group Sea-Watch, which operates its Seabird aircraft to spot migrant boats in distress, vowed to continue its flights. It said late Tuesday that the flights were the only independent way “to document the daily violations of human rights that occur” in the Mediterranean.
It cited the activities of the Libyan coast guard, which is trained and equipped by the European Union. Libyan rescue ships regularly intercept migrant smuggling boats and bring them back to shore in Libya, where the United Nations and human rights groups have documented grave abuses at migrant holding facilities.
“This attack that tramples on international law will not stop us from continuing to annoy those who would like what happens daily in the Mediterranean to remain a secret,” Sea-Watch said in a social media post.
It wasn’t immediately clear what the groups would do to keep flying, and whether they could find alternative airports close enough to the search zone.
Sara Kelany, lawmaker and migration coordinator for Meloni's Brothers of Italy party, denied the government was trying to limit the groups' activities. The aim, she said, was to ensure the coast guard can do its job in accordance with international regulations.
“It is an order issued by ENAC that substantially regulated the activities of NGOs in the air space corresponding to the Italian search and rescue zone,” she told The Associated Press.
Lampedusa, which is closer to Africa than the Italian mainland, has long been the destination of choice for migrant smugglers who charge people hundreds of euros apiece to be crammed into overcrowded boats to make the dangerous crossing from North Africa.
Meloni has vowed to strangle the flow, and has inked a series of agreements to incentivize North African countries to prevent departures, while also persuading would-be EU member Albania to build two centers to process the asylum claims of those migrants who are rescued by Italian ships.
To date, the number of migrants arriving in Italy is way down this year compared to the same period last year: 17,666 had arrived as of Wednesday, compared to 44,739 by this time last year and slightly more than the 11,797 in 2022, according to interior ministry data.
Paolo Santalucia contributed.
FILE - Eike Bretschneider exits the Seabird aircraft after flying for nearly six hours before running low on fuel over the Mediterranean Sea north of Libya, as a storm approaches the island of Lampedusa, Italy, Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021. Italy’s aviation authority has barred humanitarian migrant rescue groups from using a Sicilian airport to launch search and rescue flights over the Mediterranean, in the government’s latest crackdown on their activities. (AP Photo/Renata Brito, File)
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Pro-Palestinian protesters set up a new encampment at Drexel University in Philadelphia over the weekend, prompting a lockdown of school buildings, a day after authorities thwarted an attempted occupation of a school building at the neighboring University of Pennsylvania campus.
After several hundred demonstrators marched from Philadelphia’s City Hall to west Philadelphia on Saturday afternoon, Drexel said in a statement that about 75 protesters began to set up an encampment on the Korman Quad on the campus. About a dozen tents remained Sunday, blocked off by barricades and monitored by police officers. No arrests were reported.
Drexel President John Fry said in a message Saturday night that the encampment “raises understandable concerns about ensuring everyone’s safety,” citing what he called “many well-documented instances of hateful speech and intimidating behavior at other campus demonstrations.” University buildings were on lockdown and were “open only to those with clearance from Drexel’s Public Safety,” he said.
Drexel authorities were “closely monitoring” the demonstration to ensure that it was peaceful and didn’t disrupt normal operations, and that “participants and passersby will behave respectfully toward one another,” Fry said.
“We will be prepared to respond quickly to any disruptive or threatening behavior by anyone,” Fry said, vowing not to tolerate property destruction, “harassment or intimidation” of students or staff or threatening behavior of any kind, including “explicitly racist, antisemitic, or Islamophobic” speech. Anyone not part of the Drexel community would not be allowed “to trespass into our buildings and student residences,” he said.
On Friday night, members of Penn Students Against the Occupation of Palestine had announced an action at the University of Pennsylvania’s Fisher-Bennett Hall, urging supporters to bring “flags, pots, pans, noise-makers, megaphones” and other items.
The university said campus police, supported by city police, removed the demonstrators Friday night, arresting 19 people, including six University of Pennsylvania students. The university’s division of public safety said officials found “lock-picking tools and homemade metal shields,” and exit doors secured with zip ties and barbed wire, windows covered with newspaper and cardboard and entrances blocked.
Authorities said seven people arrested would face felony charges, including one accused of having assaulted an officer, while a dozen were issued citations for failing to disperse and follow police commands.
The attempted occupation of the building came a week after city and campus police broke up a two-week encampment on the campus, arresting 33 people, nine of whom were students and two dozen of whom had “no Penn affiliation,” according to university officials.
Dozens of George Washington University graduates walked out of commencement ceremonies, disrupting university President Ellen Granberg’s speech, in protest over the ongoing siege of Gaza and last week’s clearing of an on-campus protest encampment that involved police use of pepper spray and dozens of arrests.
The ceremony, at the base of the Washington Monument, started peacefully with fewer than 100 protestors demonstrating across the street in front of the Museum of African American History and Culture. But as Granberg began speaking, at least 70 students among the graduates started chanting and raising signs and Palestinian flags. The students then noisily walked out as Granberg spoke, crossing the street to a rapturous response from the protesters.
Students and others have set up tent encampments on campuses around the country to protest the Israel-Hamas war , pressing colleges to cut financial ties with Israel. Tensions over the war have been high on campuses since the fall but demonstrations spread quickly following an April 18 police crackdown on an encampment at Columbia University.
Nearly 3,000 people have been arrested on U.S. campuses over the past month. As summer break approaches, there have been fewer new arrests and campuses have been calmer. Still, colleges have been vigilant for disruptions to commencement ceremonies.
President Joe Biden told the graduating class at Morehouse College on Sunday, which included some students wearing keffiyeh scarves around their shoulders on top of their black graduation robes, that he heard their voices of protest and scenes from the conflict in Gaza have been heartbreaking. He said given what he called a “humanitarian crisis” there, he had called for “an immediate cease-fire” and return of hostages taken when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.
The latest Israel-Hamas war began when Hamas and other militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking an additional 250 hostage. Palestinian militants still hold about 100 captives, and Israel’s military has killed more than 35,000 people in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.
President Joe Biden receives an honorary degree at the Morehouse College commencement Sunday, May 19, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Pro-Palestinian protesters gather outside the gates to the courtyard at the University of Pennsylvania Museum on Friday, May 17, 2024 in Philadelphia. Authorities say a half-dozen University of Pennsylvania students were among 19 pro-Palestinian protesters arrested during an attempt to occupy a building on campus. University police say seven remained in custody Saturday awaiting felony charges from Friday's incident, including one person who allegedly assaulted an officer. (Charles Fox/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
A protester is taken into custody at S. 34th St. near University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia on Friday, May 17, 2024. Authorities say a half-dozen University of Pennsylvania students were among 19 pro-Palestinian protesters arrested during an attempt to occupy a building on campus. University police say seven remained in custody Saturday awaiting felony charges from Friday's incident, including one person who allegedly assaulted an officer. (Steven M. Falk/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
