UN Refugee Agency Hails Italy’s Decision To Allow Stranded Asylum-Seekers To Land
The United Nations refugee agency has welcomed the Italian Government’s decision to allow 13 Turkish asylum-seekers –
who had been stranded for almost two weeks aboard a commercial freighter in the Mediterranean Sea – to land in Sicily.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis said yesterday that “the heartening news” meant
Italy has fulfilled its obligations under international and European law.
The 11 men and two boys disembarked from the Lydia Oldendorff, a commercial freighter, Saturday night in the Sicilian
port town of Augusta. They were given medical checks and transferred to an asylum centre in Sicily.
Ms. Pagonis said the asylum-seekers were in good health, despite the physical and psychological toll of the last two
weeks’ events, and were “obviously extremely relieved to be off the boat.”
She thanked the ship’s owner, Matthias Dabelstein, and its captain and crew “for the patient and responsible way in
which they handled this difficult and drawn-out episode.”
On 9 October the Lydia Oldendorff docked in the Italian port of Gioia Tauro, where the asylum-seekers were discovered,
hiding in a container being unloaded from the ship.
After being taken to local police, where the group said they were unable to claim asylum, they were returned to the
freighter, which then travelled to the Maltese capital of Valletta. They were not allowed ashore and the vessel was
escorted into international waters.
Since 15 October the Lydia Oldendorff has been moored off the coast of Malta as UNHCR officials held talks with Italian
and Maltese authorities to try to resolve the impasse. The ship’s owner agreed to delay its scheduled return journey to
Turkey.
During the stand-off UNHCR warned that returning an asylum-seeker to their country of origin without hearing their claim
violates the fundamental principles of international refugee law and could amount to refoulement, or the forced return
of a refugee to a place where they face persecution, torture or death.