REFUGEE CRISIS Migrants jump off rescue boat in bid to reach Italy

ROME — Several migrants jumped into the sea from a Spanish rescue boat Sunday in a thwarted bid to reach shore in Italy, where the government’s hardline interior minister has refused to let the 107 passengers disembark.

“We have been warning for days, desperation has its limits,” said Open Arms founder Oscar Camps, who released a video showing four migrants wearing orange life vests swimming toward Lampedusa island. Crew members from the humanitarian group’s ship swam quickly brought them back aboard.

In the evening, Open Arms said it had urgently requested permission to enter Lampedusa’s port so the migrants, aboard for 17 days, could finally get off. It said their psychological and physical conditions are “at risk.”

“If the worst happens, Europe and Salvini will be responsible,” the charity said in a tweet.

Open Arms rescued the group from smugglers’ unseaworthy dinghies off Libya.

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini refused docking permission because he contends charity rescue boats essentially facilitate the smuggling of migrants from traffickers in Libya.

On Sunday, Spain offered one of its ports for the migrants to come ashore, but Open Arms said it would be too dangerous to undertake a journey that could take perhaps a week with the migrants.

For days, Open Arms has been anchored off Lampedusa, a fishing and vacation island between Sicily and northern Africa. The boat initially had 147 migrants aboard when it reached Italian waters. In the last few days, 40 migrants have been transferred by Italian coast guard vessels to Lampedusa, including a few who were ailing and 27 believed to be minors.

With Salvini challenging the survival of Italy’s populist government in a push for an early election he hopes will give him the premiership, the minister is hardening his alreadyfirm resolve to keep humanitarian ships from bringing rescued migrants to Italy. His League’s party blames migrants for crime, and its popularity among voters has been soaring.

Open Arms contended that Salvini is using the 107 migrants for “xenophobic and racist propaganda.”

A Norwegianflagged ship, Ocean Viking, operated by two French humanitarian groups, also has been sailing for days with 356 rescued migrants aboard between Malta and Lampedusa and another tiny Italian island, Linosa, awaiting assignment of a safe port. Salvini vowed to block that ship, too.

“Whoever hangs tough wins,” Salvini said. “In Italy there’s no place for traffickers.”