Aquarius migrants delayed by bad weather reach Malta
Boat capsizes off Turkey’s Aegean coast, five migrants killed
VALLETTA: The Maltese authorities on Sunday inally took 58 migrants from the Aquarius to Valletta after they had waited for days in rough seas on the rescue ship that can no longer go to port after its lag was pulled.
The migrants, including Libyans, subsaharan Africans and Afghans, boarded two buses at a Malta Armed Forces base in Valletta after being transferred from the Aquarius to a Maltese patrol boat in international waters.
Their number includes a ive-month pregnant woman and Bella the dog, the irst animal rescued with migrants in the Mediterranean and they are to be sent on to four European countries after a tense standoff over their fate last week.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR said that it had not yet been decided where which of the migrants —18 children, 17 women, 23 men and a dog - would go.
“We hope that they will leave Malta in a few days,” UNHCR representative Paolo Biondi told AFP at the base.
France has agreed to take 18 of the migrants, Germany and Spain 15 each and Portugal 10.
Panama pulled its lag from the ship a week ago, meaning the unregistered Aquarius would not be able to leave any port, while other rescue vessels already impounded in Valletta ight a protracted legal battle.
The group were picked up from two boats plying the perilous route between North Africa and Europe last Monday.
The Aquarius, chartered by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and SOS Mediterranee, is the only civilian ship still trying to rescue migrants making the perilous journey from North Africa to Europe.
With no lag, Aquarius was expected to sail for its home port of Marseille in southern France.
BOAT ACCIDENT
Turkey’s state-run news agency says a boat carrying migrants has capsized off Turkey’s northern Aegean coast, killing at least ive people.
The capsizing occurred as a rare and powerful Mediterranean storm is causing torrential rains in parts of Greece and Turkey.
The Anadolu Agency said the rubber boat capsized on Sunday off the town of Enez in Edirne province. The town is not far from the northern Greek coastal town of Alexandroupolis.
It said it was not immediately clear how many migrants were on the boat and rescue crews were scouring the area for possible survivors or more bodies.
Although their numbers have decreased in recent years, migrants still try and cross into Greece from nearby Turkey in the hopes of making their way to other European countries.