ITALIAN SHIP REFUSED AT PORT DUE TO MIGRANTS

ROME Italy’s populist government intensified its tough new approach to migrants by refusing, for the first time, to allow an Italian merchant ship to deliver a group of rescued asylumseekers to an Italian port.

The Vos Thalassa, an oil rig supply vessel, picked up 66 migrants from the middle of the Mediterranean after they set out from the coast of Libya. But instead of being allowed to bring them directly to Italian soil as in the past, Rome insisted that they be transferred to an Italian coast guard vessel.

Danilo Toninelli, the transport minister, alleged the migrants had threatened the 12 crew members with a mutiny and endangered their lives.