The non-governmental organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) announced on Friday that it is ending search and rescue operations in the central Mediterranean, as Italy’s “laws and policies” make it “impossible to continue with the current operating model”.

Its humanitarian ship, the Geo Barents, has been “sanctioned four times by the Italian authorities” in recent years, which imposed “a total of 600 days of immobilisation in ports”, MSF said in a statement.

These sanctions, which had the sole purpose of “punishing” the organization because it “performed its humanitarian and legal duty by saving lives at sea”, were imposed based on various decrees of the ultra-conservative government under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, which has turned the fight against illegal immigration.

“In December 2024, Italy further increased the severity of the sanctions, facilitating and speeding up the seizure of humanitarian organizations’ search and rescue vessels,” the NGO added.

The practice of the Italian authorities includes designating remote ports, often in the north of the country, to disembark people rescued at sea, thus reducing the ability of Geo Barents to rescue people in distress at sea and to have a presence in the areas where it is necessary, giving a specific example.

“In June 2023, Italian authorities required the Geo Barents, which can accommodate up to 600 people, to La Spezia, in northern Italy, to disembark 13 survivors. This meant traveling more than 1,000 kilometers, even though there were much closer ports,” explained MSF.

He emphasized, however, that he has no intention of abandoning the immigrants to their fate.

The NGO “reaffirms its strong commitment to migrants, especially people attempting the dangerous crossing of the central Mediterranean, a route where more than 31,000 people have died or been declared missing since 2014,” according to its statement.

MSF intends to “return as soon as possible to conduct search and rescue operations in one of the deadliest migration routes in the world,” assured Juan Matias Hill, the organization’s spokesman for operations of this nature.