Spain to accept rescue vessel carrying 629 migrants stranded in the Mediterranean after Italy and Malta refused it permission to dock

Migrants disembark from the Aquarius ship after its arrival in Sicily in January (file photo)
REUTERS
Eleanor Rose11 June 2018

A boat carrying more than 600 rescued migrants will be accepted by Spain after a stand-off that saw it stranded at sea.

The privately operated rescue ship and its 629 passengers, including seven pregnant women, had been turned away by authorities in Italy and Malta leaving them adrift in the Mediterranean.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who took office just over a week ago, has given instructions for the boat to be admitted to the eastern port of Valencia, his office said in a statement.

Valencia is some 1,300 kilometres from the vessel's current location - several day's travel - while news agency EFE quoted a doctor on board the Aquarius who claimed there is only enough food left for today.

The boat Aquarius, run by non-profit SOS Mediteranee, was caught over the weekend in an anti-migration crackdown by the right-wing partner in Italy's new populist government, which pledged to prevent the country becoming the "refugee camp of Europe".

Aquarius is carrying 400 people who had been rescued by the Italian navy, coastguard and private cargo ships.

The ship is also carrying 229 migrants pulled from the water and from traffickers' unseaworthy boats by the ship's own crew, including 123 unaccompanied minors.

The prime minister of Malta, Joseph Muscat, tweeted to thank Spain for helping to end the extraordinary stand-off after Malta claimed that the boat was not its responsibility.

He said Malta would send "fresh supplies" to replenish the Aquarius.

He also claimed Italy "broke international rules and caused" the drama, adding: "We will have to sit down and discuss how to prevent this from happening again."

Earlier on Monday, the medical NGO Medecins Sans Frontiers tweeted that the 629 passengers were "stable for now but unnecessary delay to disembarkation in safe port puts vulnerable patients at risk, particularly: 7 pregnant women, 15 w/ serious chemical burns, several critical drowning + hypothermia patients".

The UN Refugee Agency meanwhile urged governments in the region to allow the boat to disembark for the wellbeing of all passengers.

Rescued migrants on board the MW Aquarius
REUTERS

Mayors across the south of Italy pledged on Monday to defy the government's new hard-line approach and open city seaports to allow rescued migrants to safely disembark.

But the mayors would have needed the direct support of the Italian coastguard, which is under the control of the Italian government, to allow the ship to dock.

The migrant rescue boat is currently stranded at sea unable to dock
REUTERS

Refusing to allow Aquarius to dock, Italian premier Giuseppe Conte said he had instead asked Malta to help the migrants, contacting the Maltese premier to call on him for "the human assistance of persons in difficulty aboard the Aquarius."

But Mr Muscat, "while comprehending the situation," refused to allow them passage either, according to a Facebook post by Mr Conte on Sunday.

One of the migrants is helped aboard the rescue vessel
REUTERS

Italian interior minister, Matteo Salvini, who leads the anti-immigrant League party in the governing coalition, tweeted on Sunday: "Starting today, Italy, too, begins to say NO to the trafficking of human beings, NO to the business of clandestine immigration."

Migrants aboard the Aquarius, which carries out rescues in the Mediterranean
AFP/Getty Images

Mr Salvini and Italian Transportation Minister Danilo Toninelli meanwhile insisted in a joint statement that it was Malta's responsibility to take in the passengers from the Aquarius.

"The island can't continue to turn the other way," the ministers said. "The Mediterranean is the sea of all the countries that face it, and it (Malta) can't imagine that Italy will continue to face this giant phenomenon in solitude."

For its part, Malta said the Aquarius had picked up the passengers in waters controlled by Libya, where Italian authorities in Rome coordinate search-and-rescue operations.

The Maltese Rescue Coordination Center "is neither the competent nor the coordinating authority," the small island nation said in a statement.

Driven by violent conflicts and extreme poverty, hundreds of thousands of migrants have reached southern Europe in recent years by crossing the Mediterranean in smugglers' boats that are often unseaworthy.

The United Nations says at least 785 migrants have died crossing the sea so far this year.

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