by Angelo Romano
Illicit waste trafficking. This is the accusation from the Catania Prosecutor's Office, led by Prosecutor Carmelo Zuccaro, towards Doctors Without Borders Belgium and the Netherlands, at the end of the “Bordless” investigation. Others are under investigation with them 12 people: 8 representatives of the NGO in various capacities, First Officer Oleksandr Yurchenko and Aquarius Commander, Eugenii Talanin, and the two shipping agents contacted for waste disposal activities once landed in the ports. The accusation is of having systematically shared, planned and executed an illegal project for the disposal of a large quantity of infectious waste (healthcare and otherwise), produced on the Vos Prudence and Aquarius ships following migrant rescue activities, together with municipal solid waste, on the occasion of technical stops and the disembarkation of migrants, despite the "numerous and documented cases of diseases recorded by the various Maritime Health Offices in Sicily and Southern Italy which intervened at the time of the migrants' arrival in Italian ports" in which they were "detected 5.088 health cases at infectious risk (scabies, meningitis, tuberculosis, AIDS and syphilis) are 21.326 migrants landed". Precisely this last aspect has been highlighted by politicians, institutional representatives and some newspapers that, when they spread the news, they talked about waste at risk of infection, suggesting a potential spread of dangerous epidemics and fueling a new narrative on NGOs: after being referred to as "sea taxis" and accused of "destabilizing” the Italian economy, now they have been accused of being potential plague spreaders.

Everything you need to know What the ordinance says According to the reconstruction accepted by the investigating judge, in January 2017 and May 2018 Doctors Without Borders made use of the intermediation of a shipping agent, Francesco Gianino, and one of his sub-agent, Ivan Giovanni Romeo, to dispose of solid waste produced on board the Vos Prudence and Aquarius ships during migrant rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea in an illicit manner. The waste collection and disposal service is divided into three phases: the ship's master sends a form indicating (and distinguishing into typologies) the quantity of waste to be disposed of; the port facility manager organizes the service taking into account the types of waste; the port ecological operator gives the commander the daily service voucher as a waste delivery receipt.
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SOURCE: https://www.valigiablu.it/aquarius-zuccaro-traffico-rifiuti/