Ocean Viking migrant rescue ship back in the water after 10-day stoppage

The French-operated migrant rescue ship Ocean Viking has been cleared to leave the Italian port where it has been stuck for ten days in a bureaucratic wrangle.

The Ocean Viking vessel in an Italian port in 2020 (illustration) AP - Fabio Peonia

Marseille-based SOS Mediterranee said Italian authorities at Civitavecchia port outside Rome, having called into question the vessel's safety standards, had given the green light for it to set to sea once more.

"Ten days after the detention of the Ocean Viking in the port of Civitavecchia the Italian authorities have recognised that the ship... wholly conforms to all applicable rules," said the NGO.

It added that Norwegian authorities, under whose flag the vessel sails had also confirmed as much, allowing the breakthrough.

Italian authorities had found there were not enough certified crew members to operate its life rafts, even though it holds more than the required amount of rafts.

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"We are very relieved to be able to resume our rescue missions, interrupted at the height of summer, the season which sees most crossings," the director and co-founder of the NGO, Sophie Beau, told French news agency AFP by telephone.

Shortage of rescue boats

"But equally it's so much time we have not been able to spend at sea just when there is a severe shortage of rescue boats in this central Mediterranean zone," added Beau, calling into question Italy's intentions in holding up her organisation's operations.

She noted that in the four years since the NGO had chartered the vessel it had been subject to seven Italian controls -- an "unusually high" number in her view.

She said the group's operations would resume as soon as possible – within days – once it had been resupplied.

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The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) says the central Mediterranean is the world's most dangerous route for migrants, putting at 1,931 the number of people unaccounted for in the zone to date this year.

Italy's far-right government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has since coming to power last year been ramping up efforts to mire aid groups' migrant rescue efforts, including forcing rescue ships to dock in assigned ports, often far away and requiring days of extra sailing.

(with AFP)