What to do about the charities who send boats to bring asylum seekers to the Italian coast? Save the Children and seven others have been doing this for some time now, to the alarm of the Italian government. It suspects that some NGOs are colluding with the people-traffickers, and undermining attempts by the government to shut down a business that has already led to 2,200 deaths this year alone. Nicholas Farrell looked at this in a recent cover story for The Spectator. The NGOs say they are saving lives – which is of course true. But the question is whether, by helping the people traffickers in the final leg of the journey, they are oiling the wheels of a new and evil industry in a way that means more, not fewer, deaths.
There’s no suggestion that the NGOs are taking backhanders from the people-traffickers, simply that the two are acting in concert to circumvent Italian border control.
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