EU takes first steps to evacuate and relocate rescued migrants
● Crisis looms as more than 350 still on aid ships in the Mediterranean
The first steps to relocate migrants who were kept at sea by Italy for nearly three weeks began yesterday as a new crisis loomed with more than 350 rescued people still on board a rescue ship in high seas.
The Ocean Viking, which is operated by the Doctors without Borders and SOS Mediterranee aid groups, has been on standby since it completed the rescue of 356 men, women and children in the central Mediterranean nine days ago.
The ship is currently in international waters, about 32 miles from European shores between Malta and the Italian island of Linosa.
Both countries have refused it permission to disembark. The situation on board remained under control, SOS Mediteranee head of mission Nick Romaniuk told Italian newspaper La Repubblica. “But we cannot resist forever,” he added.
The group said on Twitter people are sleeping on the floor and that there are a limited number of showers and a limited water capacity.
“These people have suffered enormously. Most of them have gone through detention centres in Libya,” SOS Mediteranee said.
“They need to disembark as soon as possible.”
France has confirmed it will take some of the migrants, repeating the model of an agreement reached earlier this week by some EU members with a separate group of migrants rescued in early August by Open Arms, a vessel run by a Spanish aid group that goes by the same name.
European countries have been at odds over how to handle the flow of economic migrants and asylum seekers who take the perilous journey across the Mediterranean, often putting their lives in the hands of trafficking gangs.
Although the number of sea arrivals has dropped sharply from 2015, Italy’s hard-line interior minister has become a symbol for Europeans who reject migration. Matteo Salvini has closed Italy’s ports to the boats of humanitarian rescue groups and accused them of colluding with the traffickers.
Mr Salvini’s handling of the crisis has boosted his popularity at home, emboldening him to pull the plug on the uneasy governing coalition in a bid for new elections.
More broadly, it has exposed the EU’S shortcomings in offering a unified approach to the challenge posed by sea arrivals of migrants.
Yesterday, Doctors without Borders called on Europe to find a solution to the repeated stand-offs barring humanitarian rescue ships carrying migrants from the nearest safe ports.
Maribel Tellado, campaign director for the Spanish chapter of Amnesty International, said the crisis was “a result of the fracas of European migratory policies”.