Spain to allow migrant rescue ship rejected by Italy to dock in Valencia
Spain’s new prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said on Monday that his country would welcome the migrants on board the rescue vessel MS Aquarius and that he had given permission for the ship to dock in Valencia.
A statement released on Monday afternoon said: “The prime minister has given instructions so that Spain can fulfil its international humanitarian crisis commitments and has announced that the Aquarius will be welcomed into a Spanish port ... It is our duty to help avoid a humanitarian catastrophe and offer a ‘safe harbour’ to these people in accordance with international law.”
Earlier, the UN’s refugee agency called for authorities to allow the 629 migrants, including more than 100 children, stranded off Malta and Italy on board the ship to disembark urgently. Aquarius was drifting in international waters on Monday after Italy’s new interior minister stopped it docking in an Italian port.
“People are in distress, are running out of provisions and need help quickly. Broader issues such as who has responsibility and how these responsibilities can best be shared between states should be looked at later,” Vincent Cochetel, the UNHCR’s special envoy for the central Mediterranean, said in a statement issued in Geneva.
Mayors across the south of Italy had pledged to defy a move by the new Italian government – an alliance of the far right and populists – to prevent the boat from docking in the Sicilian capital, Palermo.
But the mayors’ defiance appeared unlikely to serve any practical purpose without the direct support of the Italian coastguard.
In the first evidence of the government’s hardline approach, the interior minister, Matteo Salvini, said on Sunday that all Italian ports were closed to Aquarius.
The Maltese government rejected a request to take the boat, saying international law required that the migrants should be taken to Italian ports.
Salvini, the leader of the League, a far-right party, wrote on Facebook: “Malta takes in nobody. France pushes people back at the border, Spain defends its frontier with wea-
pons. From today, Italy will also start to say no to human trafficking, no to the business of illegal immigration.”
Leoluca Orlando, the mayor of Palermo, said he was ready to open the city’s seaport to allow the rescued migrants to safely disembark.
“Palermo in ancient Greek meant ‘complete port’. We have always welcomed rescue boats and vessels who saved lives at sea. We will not stop now,” Orlando said. “Salvini is violating the international law. He has once again shown that we are under an extreme far-right government.’’
Other mayors in Italy’s south, including those in Naples, Messina and Reggio Calabria, also said they were ready to disobey Salvini’s order and allow Aquarius to dock in their seaports.
A representative of Médecins Sans Frontières, which has staff on the boat, said the mayors’ remarks were “nice but not practical” because it was standard practice to wait for the Italian coastguard, which is under the control of the Italian government, to allow a ship to dock.
More than 600,000 people have reached Italy by boat from Africa in the past five years, and it is estimated as many as 500,000 are still in the country. Salvini’s League, formerly the Northern League, campaigned on an anti-immigration platform even though the previous government had overseen a big drop in the numbers coming from Libya over the past 12 months.
Salvini wrote: “My aim is to guarantee a peaceful life for these youths in Africa and for our children in Italy,” adding the slogan: “We will shut the ports.”
The humanitarian group SOS Méditerranée, which operates the boat, said on Twitter on Sunday that Aquarius had taken in 629 migrants, including 123 unaccompanied minors, 11 other children and seven pregnant women.
The charity said the migrants, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa, were picked up in six different rescue operations off the coast of Libya and included hundreds who were plucked from the sea by Italian naval units and then transferred to Aquarius.
“The boat is now heading north towards a secure port,” SOS Méditerranée tweeted, without specifying its destination.
Salvini said the route took the boat past Malta, and the boat should dock in the capital, Valletta.
In a brief statement, Malta said the rescue operations took place in international waters off Libya that were part of a search and rescue area overseen by the rescue coordination centre in Rome.
“Malta is neither the competent nor the coordinating authority in this case. Malta will observe prevailing laws,” its government said in a brief statement.