MIGRANT RESCUE BOAT WAITS FOR MALTA BERTH

▶ Five EU nations agree to take share of the 234 on board the NGO vessel

A rescue boat stranded for days in the Mediterranean with more than 200 migrants on board was still waiting yesterday for permission to dock in Malta, pending a deal between a group of EU nations to take in a share of those on board.

Lifeline, a German NGO vessel, has been waiting for six days to be allocated a port after rescuing 234 migrants off the coast of Libya last Thursday.

The organisation tweeted it had renewed its request to dock in Malta overnight, saying passengers were seasick.

Yesterday the boat was given permission “to enter Maltese waters” to shelter from deteriorating weather conditions and high winds, the charity said.

After days of bickering over the migrants’ fate, five EU nations – Italy, Malta, France, Portugal and Spain – agreed to take in a share of those on board, according to Italian media.

Germany, however, did not participate, a stance which the NGO co-founder Axel Steier blamed on the country’s hardline Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, who has given Chancellor Angela Merkel an ultimatum to curb arrivals to Germany.

“If the situation on the ship escalates in the next hours due to exhaustion and weakness of the people rescued and the overall worsening weather conditions, it is entirely the responsibility of Mr Seehofer to bear the consequences,” Mr Steier said.

Mission Lifeline also hit back at criticism by French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday, who said the charity had contravened “all the rules” by rescuing the migrants when the Libya coastguard was already intervening.

He accused Mission Lifeline of “playing into the hands of smugglers by reducing the risks of the journey”, and said “we cannot permanently accept this situation”.

The charity denied breaking the law.

“There have been a number of false accusations that Lifeline ignores orders by different MRCCs [maritime rescue co-ordination centres],” Mr Steier said. Lifeline said the migrants have faced abuse and rape in holding centres in Libya, and that returning them would break international law.

“The only order the ship denied was to hand over people to the so-called Libyan coastguard, as this would not have been in line with the Geneva Refugee Convention, and therefore criminal.”

The vessel’s fate has hung in the balance since last week as bloc members remained at loggerheads over how to handle the influx of people trying to reach the Continent.

The ship had rescued the migrants, including children and pregnant women, on Thursday but Malta and Italy initially refused to take them in.

Valletta agreed on Tuesday to let the ship dock once other EU states confirmed they would help, but it said it would launch an investigation and possibly take action against the Lifeline once it entered Maltese waters.

Italy’s far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini hailed the news that a second migrant ship he had turned away would be taken in elsewhere.

This month, Rome rejected the Aquarius, a ship carrying 630 migrants, forcing it to eventually dock in Spain.

“For women and children really fleeing the war the doors are open, for everyone else they are not,” Mr Salvini tweeted.

The decision by Italy’s new hardline government and Malta to turn away rescue vessels has plunged Europe into a political crisis over how to handle the huge numbers of people fleeing war and misery in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

Italy and Malta say they are bearing the brunt of the new arrivals, while other countries are urging more forceful policies to block their entry.

Sixteen EU leaders held emergency talks in Brussels on Sunday in an attempt to break the deadlock over who should take in the migrants.

A full EU summit is scheduled for tomorrow and Friday.