Boat migrants rocked by political storm to arrive in Spain

VALENCIA, Spain: Hundreds of migrants pulled from the Mediterranean by a rescue ship arrived at the Spanish port of Valencia yesterday, ending a gruelling nine-day voyage but leaving wide open a fierce debate in Europe over how to handle immigration.

Spain swooped to help 629 mainly sub-Saharan Africans on board the Aquarius last week, offering the charity-run ship a berth 700 nautical miles away after Italy and Malta refused to let it dock.

The first migrants to arrive came on an Italian coast guard ship, which took aboard 274 of the Aquarius’s passengers to make the journey safer. They arrived soon after dawn in the eastern Spanish port, where a staff of 2 320, including volunteers, translators and health officials, awaited.

Officials in protective suits and masks greeted the migrants as they debarked and took them to a tent where police started identifying them and processing them.

The Aquarius itself is due to dock once all the migrants are off the Italian vessel. Shouts and singing erupted on the ship as the 106 migrants on board saw Valencia on the horizon, Spanish journalist Gabriela Sanchez tweeted. Sanchez was travelling on another rescue group’s boat alongside it.

The ship’s predicament gave Italy’s new government the chance to assert its anti-immigrant credentials, and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, in office for just over a week, took the opportunity to underline a more liberal stance.

But the plight of the Aquarius has highlighted the European Union’s failure to agree on how to manage huge numbers of people fleeing poverty and conflict.

“People are coming to Europe seeking European values of solidarity and support,” Red Cross secretary-general Elhadj As Sy told media in Valencia on Saturday. – Reuters