“Too smart for their own good” (Matteo Renzi). “Taxi cabs for migrants” (Luigi Di Maio). Northern League secretary Matteo Salvini said there was a “secret service dossier” on them. Their chief accuser is Catania’s prosecutor Carmelo Zuccaro, according to whom their intervention “renders investigations into facilitators of criminal organisations useless.” After weeks of hearings, though, the defense commission in the Italian Parliament has cleared them of all suspicions. But who are they? Humanitarian Ngos, carrying out search and rescue operations in the waters between Sicily and Libya, are the target of a relentless smear campaign. The European border control agency Frontex has designated them the main “pull factor” for the rising number of migrant boats (and deaths) in the Mediterranean. How much truth, and how much untruth, is there in such accusations?
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