Migrants and sea rescue: Piantedosi's comments spark new tensions with NGOs

Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi 's comments on NGOs involved in rescuing migrants at sea immediately reignited political and media debate. Reactions were swift.

Mediterranean: Humanitarian ship stopped after rescue, NGO denounces inhumane practices by Ministry of the Interior

The vessel of the Italian organization Mediterranea Saving Humans was placed under administrative detention by a joint order of the police, the Guardia di Finanza, and the Coast Guard.

The vessel had rescued ten people, aged between 14 and 20, who had been thrown overboard from a Libyan militia dinghy about 30 miles off the coast of Tripoli, in international waters, between the night of Wednesday and Thursday, August 21. The shipwrecked people, found in critical condition, were recovered by the rescue team from the waves.

According to the Ministry of the Interior, the ship should have headed for Genoa , 690 miles from the rescue point, despite already being close to the first available Sicilian port. This decision, deemed illogical by mission leader Beppe Caccia and commander Paval Botica , was disregarded: the Mediterranea decided to dock immediately in Trapani on the evening of Saturday, August 23, thus safeguarding the safety of the shipwrecked.

Caccia explained to Fanpage that the priority was to save the migrants , denouncing the Interior Ministry's practice of assigning ports far from rescue sites as cruel and unfounded, intended only to prolong the shipwrecked migrants' suffering. Despite medical certificates and reports to the CIRM (Italian Center for Migration and Rescue) highlighting the need for immediate disembarkation, the Interior Ministry maintained its position on Genoa. The NGO chose to take responsibility for acting as needed, convinced of the correctness of its decision.

Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi took to social media to emphasize that it is the state that fights human traffickers and coordinates rescue operations at sea , not non-governmental organizations. On X and Instagram, the Interior Minister posted a photo of an Italian NGO's new ship stopped in Trapani after its first mission, along with a news report of the arrest, reaffirming the state's management of the rescue operations.

Piantedosi's decision comes as the European Union is demanding clarification from Libya on the more than twenty minutes of shooting against the Ocean Viking , which landed yesterday in Augusta, and as there is an outpouring of solidarity towards the missions in the Mediterranean.

The minister's position has provoked harsh political criticism. Nicola Fratoianni , secretary of the Italian Left, commented as follows:

Minister Piantedosi really needs a lot of nerve to write (or have written) that it is the State that fights human traffickers and manages rescue operations at sea and elsewhere, after having freed with full honors a trafficker like Almasri or to stand by and watch Libyan bandits, supported by his government, shoot at rescue ships. It really needs a lot of nerve to write these things after the Cutro massacre and the daily deaths that occur in the Mediterranean in the absence of institutional rescue operations. Do you want to manage rescue operations? Do you want to fight human traffickers? Do it once and for all .

It's the state that fights human traffickers and manages and coordinates rescue operations at sea. Not NGOs. pic.twitter.com/XY63ss2HAi

— Matteo Piantedosi (@Piantedosim) August 26, 2025