By Michael Birnbaum
A group of anti-migrant activists chartered a ship to help turn people back to northern Africa. This week, part of its own crew claimed asylum along the way.
The Wednesday asylum claim in Cyprus' breakaway north by five Sri Lankans who were on the ship was a setback for the activists, members of the far-right Generation Identity movement, who hired the Djibouti-flagged C-Star to take them off the coast of Libya to try to disrupt the flow of migrants. More than 94,000 people have come to Italy in 2017 by setting sail from Libya in rickety dinghies and small boats, then getting picked up by naval vessels and ships run by charities.
The flow has enraged anti-immigrant activists and increasingly many ordinary Italians, who say that the aid organisations are playing into smugglers' hands by functioning as a crucial link in the transport process to Italy. The Italian government has put new pressure on the aid groups and is seeking to send more migrants back to Libya. Critics say that is a violation of international law, because migrants face abuse, exploitation and war once back on Libyan shores.
The ship has been making its way to Sicily to pick up the activists, who are waiting in the port city of Catania as part of an operation they call "Defend Europe."