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The usual silence of the summer nights in the port of Lampedusa was broken on Monday 19 almost at dawn. Dozens of cameras and journalists came to the land call of the man who had been on the tugboat with a Spanish flag for 18 days that had rescued 163 people who fled by sea from the Libyan war prison. All the lights pointed to one of the informative protagonists of the summer. The lifeguard embarked on a humanitarian battle against two Titans : one ( Matteo Salvini ) limps on the most extreme right. The other ( Pedro Sánchez ) hits on the left.
"We are kidnapped on the high seas while the Government [of Spain] gets in profile and says that we are not their problem," repeated Campscar Camps Gausachs (Barcelona, 1963) in front of the microphones. Hours before, from Madrid, Vice President Carmen Calvo had already released the first blow: «He did not want to enter Malta and went to Italy». The dialectical pulse continued while immigrants trapped on board had become hostages to a political crisis. That night until Lampedusa came the tragic news of a shipwreck on the Libyan coasts in which a hundred people would have drowned. But the bulbs and the covers were still placed in the encysted situation of the Camps ship and in the darts that were thrown at each other.
This is the story of a man who wanted to be a cartoonist and has ended up fishing for those immigrants that Europe does not want to assume. Many consider Oscar Camps a miracle over the waters of the Mediterranean . A great guy, impulsive and with a strong character, who with his NGO (Proactiva Open Arms) has saved almost 60,000 lives since 2015 . It all started when the photo of the body of little Aylan Kurdi on a beach on the Turkish coast shook the consciousness of this Catalan and prompted him to leave his comfortable life in Barcelona and go to Lesbos (Greece) to help refugees.
But, within the so-called third sector, that of non-profit entities, there are also voices (asking to maintain anonymity) criticism of the leading role played by Campscar Camps throughout this migration crisis. Many do not understand why he did not disobey the Italian minister, Matteo Salvini, and his policy of closed ports. Why he did not disembark in Lampedusa - as Carola Rackete , the captain of the Sea Watch 3- boat did in June, faced with the desperate situation of immigrants who had been sleeping on the deck of a ship for weeks. "Constant fights, discussions on board, the tension experienced is unsustainable," Camps himself wrote on Twitter. And it was true. The fatigue (physical and psychological) was growing. Up to about twenty immigrants came to launch with the life jacket from the boat into the water trying to reach the coast of Lampedusa. Some did not even know how to swim.
Other NGO volunteers, including some who have come to work with Camps in Proactiva, also talk about the entrepreneur's obsession to "always grab the spotlight" and "orchestrate marketing campaigns to raise money by emptying other solidarity organizations. that operate in the same areas as the Open Arms ». The complaints of the volunteers are mainly confined to the time when Proactiva was in Lesbos, where they came to rescue 32,573 people (according to the data of the organization) since they began in September 2015. «The same end, which is help and save lives, we share it all and it doesn't matter if one does another. But Camps has always wanted to cover all the prominence . Where there was a camera, he was the first. Boats arrived in the north of Lesbos and he sent the other NGOs to the south to reach them first and thus rescue everyone, ”says an activist who has been working as a volunteer in Greece. «What has shown me the most about the Open Arms situation is that Camps sold all the time that everyone was at high risk and still did not disembark. It makes no sense unless he seeks to stretch his pulse with Salvini, ”adds another activist.
FROM LESBOS TO LAMPEDUSA
This is the escape of the man who was going to Greece to take humanitarian aid but who resumed rescues in the Mediterranean after his ship was blocked for six months by the Spanish Government for the ban on going out to international waters.
Another dramatic image, that of a father and daughter drowned in Mexico while trying to enter the United States, pushed Camps back into the sea despite the warnings of Minister Salvini. "In case of disobedience, arrest," said the Italian politician. And Camps responded bluntly: “You get out of jail; from the bottom of the sea, no » .
On Wednesday, hours after the 83 immigrants remaining aboard the Open Arms landed in Lampedusa by order of the prosecutor of Agrigento (Sicily), it was the acting vice president, Carmen Calvo, who charged against the Open Arms: «They do not have permission to rescue people at sea, ”Calvo said, warning Camps that they could face a heavy penalty (up to 900,000 euros ). What the vice president did not tell is what the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea says: providing assistance to people in danger of death at sea is an obligation.
The Proactiva director responded to Carmen Calvo firmly: «I often don't know if she really speaks or Salvini is the ventriloquist» .
Camps has never trembled at the moment of planting the face of those who need it. Always with the same forcefulness. Like when three years ago he went to the Vatican to give the Pope a life jacket of a six-year-old Syrian girl he could not rescue .
The other life of Òscar Camps is with his family (he is the father of three children) in Tiana, a municipality in the Sierra de la Marina, 15 kilometers from Barcelona. His eldest daughter, Esther, also a lifeguard as her father, has already participated in several rescues. Within the city circuit, Camps, a leading swimmer, has held multiple jobs : manager of a car rental agency in Castelldefels, an ambulance employee in Badalona, emergency coordinator at the Red Cross, lifeguard at beaches ... In 1999 He founded his company (Proactiva Serveis Aquàtics SL) taking advantage of the first decree issued by the Generalitat that regulated the presence of lifeguards in the pools. Later he would win a contest to help on the beaches of Badalona. Twenty years later, the lifeguard services of his company, which has more than 600 employees, have been extended along the Catalan coast, the Levantine, Balearic and Canary Islands.
Instead, the entrepreneur has long since left the management of his business in the hands of his partners and his wife, Camille Lacouture . He had learned to see that Mediterranean Sea that his grandfather first showed him in another way since he arrived in Lesbos with a wetsuit and 15,000 euros to set up an NGO. Today it has three ships (the Open Arms tugboat, the Astral sailboat and the fishing vessel Golfo Azzurro) and with a budget of more than three million euros (90% of private donations) to rescue immigrants and refugees who intend to reach Europe by sea.
But, like most pickled heroes, Camps also has its detractors. There are mainly the Salvini and Abascal who, from an ideology of the extreme right, accuse Proactiva of working in collusion with the mafias that traffic with immigrants. On Wednesday, the president of Vox filed a complaint with the State Attorney General's Office against the Open Arms for "collaboration with a criminal organization for human trafficking." During these weeks, since the Santiago Abascal party they have supported Minister Salvini's policy of closing the Italian ports. And they have defended to the full that the only port - by proximity - where the Spanish flag boat should have gone was that of Tunisia. Although what they did not explain is that in the country of the Maghreb immigrants live agglomerated in unsanitary conditions and are in a legal limbo that does not allow them to work or leave the country.
The speech-fire-of Vox and the Northern League of Salvini against NGOs continues with the accusation that they cause the "effect called" by their presence in the Mediterranean. It is not true. According to data from the Italian Ministry of Interior, only 8% of all people who have arrived in Italy by sea this year were landed by NGOs. "We all know that you would have preferred to see them dying or dead," Camps responded on Twitter to criticism from a Vox representative.
In recent weeks, the Open Arms crisis has monopolized much of the news today since Italy and Malta refused to offer them a safe port to disembark, causing a humanitarian (and political) crisis in Europe. The outcome did not come until Tuesday afternoon, when Prosecutor Luigi Patronaggio , who had already opened an investigation against Salvini for "alleged kidnapping of people," visited the ship. After checking the desperate situation in which the 83 immigrants were (days before the children and several sick people had landed), he ordered to seize the Open Arms. The tugboat docked shortly before midnight in Lampedusa. Immigrants came out singing the Bella Ciao and shouting that of Boza !, which in the fula language of West Africa means victory, that everything bad has already happened.
BANDAZOS DE SÁNCHEZ
During these days, inside the ship, among its 17 crew Òscar Camps has been the visible face. I only stepped on land to give an interview or buy food and water. Outside the sea, the battle has been between the bolt imposed by Salvini and the blows of the Spanish Government.
The Ministry of Development first threatened to fine the Open Arms if it continued with the bailouts. The policy that Pedro Sánchez had undertaken with Aquarius, a ship that offered a port in Spain three days after the rescue, had disappeared. From Moncloa they made it clear that they should go to the nearest safe harbor, knowing the refusal of Italy and Malta to receive immigrants.
It was not until August 15 when Spain offered (along with five other countries) to host them, with the intention that Salvini gave in and let the ship dock at Lampedusa. No luck. Three days later, the Government offered the port of Algeciras and then that of Mallorca. Oscar Camps said no. The situation was already quite unsustainable. In the words of the Open Arms captain, Marc Reig : "The ship cannot extend navigation even for an hour."
That was when Carmen Calvo said in an interview that they actually refused to dock in Malta when they had a chance. Something they deny from the Open Arms . The final solution that the Government took was to send a Navy ship, the Audacious, who arrived in Italy on Friday and is ordered to bring 15 of those rescued to Spain.
On Friday, on the beach of Barceloneta, a striking drawing appeared: Oscar Camps portrayed as a saint with an immigrant in his arms .
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