Italy demands UK take migrants on ship in Mediterranean flying the flag of Gibraltar

ITALY demanded yesterday that Britain should take in 141 migrants stranded on a ship in the Mediterranean because it was flying the flag of Gibraltar, a British territory.

Danilo Toninelli, the transport minister in Rome and a member of Italy’s populist Five Star Movement, said the UK needed to “assume responsibility for the ship”, which is run by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), a French charity. It rents the vessel from a German firm in Bremen, which has registered the ship in the port of Gibraltar.

The vessel, Aquarius, is carrying migrants from Somalia and Eritrea mostly, and was refused permission to dock by Italian and Maltese authorities.

Italy’s populist coalition government has closed its ports to ships run by aid agencies rescuing migrants, after Matteo Salvini, the far-right interior minister, vowed the country could not be treated as “Europe’s refugee camp”.

Mr Salvini yesterday wrote on Twitter: “Aquarius NGO ship with another 141 immigrants on board: German owned, rented by French NGO, foreign crew, in Maltese waters, flying the flag of Gibraltar. It can go where it wants, but not Italy.”

The Italian government’s demand marks the first time Theresa May’s government has been directly urged to take action over migration.

The UK has largely opted out of EU migration and asylum seeker policy and has not joined the passport-free Schengen zone, leaving it relatively unaffected by the crisis.

However, the Prime Minister says she hopes to stay aligned with EU migration policy after Brexit, and in June discussed plans with EU leaders to set up asylum processing centres around Europe. Downing Street had yet to comment last night.

The European Commission said that as the flag state, the UK could be responsible for the ship, but suggested the circumstances of the rescue also had to be looked at.

Tove Ernst, the commission’s migration spokesman, said: “There could a case for the flag state to be responsible.

“However, this may not be practically feasible and it is also really depending on the situation, and who is co-ordinating where the events took place.

“We are now in contact with a number of [EU] member states and stand ready to lend our full and swift diplomatic support to resolve this situation.”