Naples Mayor ready to defy Salvini and let Sea-Watch dock in the city

Naples is ready to defy Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini and let in a charity-run ship carrying 32 migrants that is blocked in the stormy Mediterranean, the city mayor said on Thursday.

His offer adds to a growing challenge from opposition politicians to Salvini’s far-right League, which has vowed to bar migrants and make life difficult for those already here.

Naples’ centre-left mayor Luigi de Magistris said Salvini was playing politics with peoples’ lives.

“To leave people and children in the middle of cold and stormy seas is a crime — not simply indecent, immoral and appalling,” de Magistris told Radio Crc.

“I hope that this boat approaches the port of Naples because, unlike what the government says, we will launch a rescue operation and we will let it enter the port,” he said. “I will be the first to lead the rescue.”

Naples is hundreds of miles to the north of the Sea-Watch 3 and there was no immediate response from the boat to the offer.

Euronews

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