A Banksy-funded rescue ship has been detained by Italian authorities for 20 days after being involved in the rescue of 37 people in the central Mediterranean, the British street artist and the vessel's crew said on social media.
It comes just days after an inflatable boat with refugee mannequins was launched into a crowd during a concert by British rock band Idles at the Glastonbury Festival - an action organised by the anonymous graffiti artist and described by UK Home Secretary James Cleverley as "abhorrent".
Banksy said his migrant rescue vessel MV Louise Michel had "rescued 17 unaccompanied children from the central Mediterranean" on 1 July.
"As punishment the Italian authorities have detained him - which I find abhorrent and unacceptable," he added, as quoted by the Guardian.
The MV Louise Michel is a bright pink former French Navy vessel that was bought with the proceeds from the sale of Banksy's works and is run by a group of activists. It is named after a French feminist anarchist and is equipped with a Banksy artwork depicting a girl in a life jacket holding a heart-shaped buoy.
"The crew was ordered to bring all survivors ashore in Pozzalo, Sicily. As the weather on the route was forecast to be too bad for a safe journey, our crew decided to seek refuge near Lampedusa, where during the night we received permission to disembark all survivors," the crew said in a social media post. The activists were later informed that the ship was now detained for failing to comply with the mooring order in Sicily. They described the detention of the ship as a "political game" and called for its release.
The MV Louise Michel was detained in March 2023 after responding to a distress call in the central Mediterranean. At the time, Italian authorities said the vessel violated new protocols put in place by the Italian government, "complicating the delicate job of coordinating rescue operations" at a time when hundreds of other boats carrying migrants were arriving in Lampedusa. | BGNES
