As 1,032 people plucked from the Mediterranean prepared to disembark the MS Aquarius onto southern Italian soil on Thursday, bringing refugee and migrant arrivals to more than 12,000 this week, those who had rescued them said they understood why Rome was threatening to close its ports to such vessels.

“Officially, we haven’t heard anything from the Italian government … but if this is indeed the case, if anything it sounds more like a cry for help from the Italian government towards the EU,” said Marcella Kraay, a Dutch coordinator with Médecins Sans Frontières, as the ship arrived at Porto di Corigliano in Calabria.

“And that goes along with what we’ve always asked for, which is for the EU to organise dedicated search and rescue in the Mediterranean. Until that happens we are forced to be out there because people are in danger, they’re going to drown if we’re not there.”

The last week has seen a surge of refugees arriving on humanitarian rescue ships. The Aquarius, which has been been undertaking risky year-round search and rescue missions in waters north of Libya since 2015, set a new record on Tuesday as it recovered more than 1,000 people in just one day. More than 5,000 people arrived in Italy on Monday alone, according to the International Office for Migration.

The Italian government, which came under pressure from a strong challenge from the centre-right in local elections this week, has responded by giving its EU ambassador a mandate to raise the issue with the European commission – including the possibility it could close its ports to the ships.

A commission spokeswoman said it supported Italy’s “call for a change in the situation” and the bloc’s migration ministers would tackle the matter next week.

“Over the last few months we’ve heard so many things said that were going to happen, or that should happen, or politicians basically gearing up for elections, that it doesn’t make me feel all that much right now,” said Kraay on board the Aquarius, which is chartered by the German-French charity SOS Méditerranée.



“Let’s cross that bridge when we get there … until now we just need to stay focussed on doing our job.”



A migrant reacts as he is greeted by MSF workers aboard the Aquarius Photograph: Sima Diab/AP

Work on Tuesday began at 5.30am on the Aquarius, under a pinkish sky, when the team was called to transfer to the ship over 700 migrants saved by a nearby oil tanker. With rib boats shuttling back and forth, the process took around four hours.



Among the passengers were a dozen or so women, some heavily pregnant or with wounds from burns due to oil spills on cheaply-made rubber boats, and two children, the youngest a three-month-old girl. Many of the migrants were suffering from scabies and had to be separated from others on board. One man had a severe mental illness.



But there was little time for the meticulously organised crew to recuperate after the transfer. Soon after the migrants were safely on board, treated by medics and given fresh clothes and rehydration food, the team was alerted to two boats floating nearby with over 100 people in each.



By the afternoon, 1,032 migrants, including two newborns, were on board the Aquarius.



The threat to block the rescue ships came as an intense debate rages in Italy over whether NGOs waiting off Libyan coastal waters act as an incentive for the smugglers.

Carmelo Zuccaro, a Sicilian magistrate, told an Italian government committee in May that there are people who are “not exactly compatible with philanthropists” among the staff of NGOs. His comments made politicians from the far-right Northern League and the populist Five Star Movement all the more vocal, with some suggesting the ships are little more than a taxi service across the sea.

“Taxi makes it sound as if people have a choice,” Kraay said. “It’s not easy to end up on Aquarius – people who think it is consider migration to be as easy as going to Ibiza, it’s not that simple. People have very good reasons to step on to a very unseaworthy wooden or rubber boat. There is no ‘pull factor’, people are being pushed.”

With Libya in chaos, most migrants, many who were foreign labourers in the country, tell rescuers they would rather die at sea than continue to live there.

Among the first to be rescued by the Aquarius on its most recent voyage was a young married couple from Nigeria, Elizabeth and Joshua Imetinyan, who had never seen the sea before being shoved onto a rubber boat with over 100 others.



They had been working as domestic helpers in Tripoli before embarking on the journey.

“We were treated like dogs,” said Elizabeth, who suffered a miscarriage after one beating. She had a lucky escape from being raped, she added. Joshua still has a gash from being whacked over the head with a rifle butt by his boss.

They don’t know anything about Europe, but they believe it to be a good place, a feeling augmented by the comfort received on board from a team of around 35 people made up of staff from SOS Méditerranée, MSF and the ship’s crew.

“In Africa, people don’t care for each other, the government is no good, many people are suffering,” said Joshua. Their brief time aboard Aquarius was a welcome hiatus between the traumas of their past and what lies ahead.

“We don’t know exactly what they’ve experienced before or the challenges they will face, so we try to give them a nice time here,” said Steffen Bürk, a Swedish nurse with MSF.

When the Aquarius, on its third summer as a rescue boat, sets sail for waters north of Libya, the crew never knows what to expect. Days may pass without a rescue, but calm waters bring more attempts to cross to Europe.

The team works relentlessly, and with huge risk, until the ship returns to Italy. It’s not unusual for the Libyan navy to shoot at rescue boats. Last September the Libyan navy admitted to staging an attack that saw the Bourbon Argos raked with gunfire.

“We in Europe like to think that the whole world wants to do nothing more than live in Europe, but that’s just arrogance,” said Kraay. “A significant number of people we see on Aquarius never wanted to go to there.”



