Italy has performed a double U-turn in its policy towards seaborne migration in the past four years. While the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was still in power, migrants – including many deserving of humanitarian protection – were intercepted off the shores of Libya in particular and returned to the tender mercies of the Gaddafi regime. Italy’s next government put an end to this “push-back” approach, technically known as refoulement, in 2012. The following year, after more than 300 migrants died off Lampedusa and Pope Francis made an impassioned appeal for tolerance, Rome launched Mare Nostrum, a proactive search-and-rescue operation in which Italian naval vessels hunted for migrants in distress up to the edge of Libyan territorial waters.
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 11:59:53 +0000
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