Exploring (Im)mobilities by Anna De Fina Gerardo Mazzaferro

Author:Anna De Fina, Gerardo Mazzaferro [Anna De Fina, Gerardo Mazzaferro]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788925280
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Channel View Publications
Published: 2021-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

Also in April 2017, during an interview with the Italian media, Di Maio declared, ‘We are facing a phenomenon in which some boats pick up migrants at sea, but not because they are about to drown. For me these boats are taxis. We should just start a ferry service from Tripoli [Libya] to Trapani [Italy]’ (‘Siamo di fronte a un fenomeno in cui delle imbarcazioni prendono dei migranti in mare, e non li salvano mentre stanno per affogare; per me sono taxi. Allora facciamo prima a mettere un traghetto Tripoli-Trapani’) (TGCom24, 2017).

Out of Di Maio’s statements, Albanese’s story with Zuccaro’s quote and the Breitbart article with Buschheuer’s quote, a trope was born: NGO boats as taxis del mare (water taxis). The circulation of this trope took on a feverish pitch with the release in July 2017 of a report from the Italian State Police on three SAR events involving Iuventa, the boat of the German NGO Jugend Rettet. Using eye-witness accounts, photographs and recordings of cell phone calls collected by two Italian secret service undercover agents who posed as security personnel on board another SAR boat (the Vos Hestia of Save The Children), the report accused the Iuventa of being involved in the trafficking of migrants.

The report was accompanied by a video posted on the website of the Italian State Police. The video told a story of collusion between the Iuventa and Libyan traffickers. Allegedly, over multiple days, there were phone calls and light signals between the two groups as they arranged a time and place to drop off and pick up migrants in the middle of the Mediterranean. The police recorded three events when the traffickers’ passengers were simply transferred from their boats to the Iuventa even though the migrants’ boats were not disabled or sinking.

In the first event, the police alleged that the Iuventa also helped the traffickers recover the boat used to carry the migrants. One segment of the police video claimed to show the Iuventa’s rubber rescue dinghy towing the traffickers’ boat back to Libyan shores. It even included an image of three other traffickers on a dinghy waving goodbye to the Iuventa’s crew.2

In the second event, the police documented the proximity of traffickers and the Iuventa, with a picture showing the Iuventa, two Iuventa’s rescue dinghies, the migrants’ boat and the traffickers’ boat clustered together. They also provided a close-up of the traffickers removing the engine from the migrants’ boat after the migrants were moved to the NGO’s rescue dinghy, as well as an image of the traffickers leaving the scene and saying goodbye to the Iuventa crew and the migrants.

In the third event, according to the investigators, the traffickers again retrieved the engine from the migrants’ boat; another photo was presented as evidence.

The police video featured, in addition, images of migrants being ferried to the Iuventa. These images were immediately seized upon by anti-immigration forces as proof that NGOs not only aided human trafficking but also encouraged this traffic by providing a ‘half-bridge’ to Europe.

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