Italy wants EU sea missions to take rescued migrants elsewhere

ROME: Italy will seek commitments from European Union partners to have migrants rescued at sea by ships from anti-trafficking and border control missions taken to other countries, its interior minister said on Sunday.

The request will be made on Thursday at a meeting of European interior ministers in the Austrian city of Innsbruck, far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said in a statement.

Italy’s new government, which took office on June 1, has helped thrust immigration back on to the European agenda by closing its ports to humanitarian ships that rescue migrants off the coast of Libya, where they are sent out on overcrowded boats by people smugglers.

Some 650,000 migrants, mostly from Africa and the Middle East, have landed on Italian shores since 2014, though many later headed north toward other European countries.

“After having stopped the NGO ships, I’ll ask European partners on Thursday in Innsbruck to block from Italian ports the arrival of ships currently on international missions in the Mediterranean,” Salvini said in a statement.

The announcement comes a day after an Irish patrol vessel brought more than 100 migrants to the Sicilian port of Messina after rescuing them. The ship is part of the EU mission to fight people smuggling, known as Operation Sophia. — Reuters