Spain offers to take refused migrant ship
Italy’s right-wing coalition would not accept boat, while Malta also declined
ROME— Italy’s new “Italians first” government claimed victory Monday when the Spanish prime minister offered safe harbour to a private rescue ship after Italy and Malta refused to allow it permission to disembark its 629 migrant passengers in their ports.
The Aquarius, a rescue vessel operated by aid group SOS Méditerranée, has been stuck in the Mediterranean Sea since Saturday, when Italy refused its crew permission to dock and demanded that Malta do so. Malta refused on Sunday.
Pedro Sanchez, Spain’s new Socialist prime minister, stepped in Monday, ordering authorities in Valencia to prepare for the ship’s arrival.
“It’s our duty to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe and offer a secure port for these people,” Sanchez said.
Both the ship and its passengers were caught up in a political dispute that might not have happened weeks ago.
One of the coalition partners in Italy’s populist government that took over on June 1, the right-wing League, promised voters other EU countries would be made to share the burden of caring for asylumseekers who set out for Europe on unseaworthy smugglers’ boats.
“Evidently it pays to raise one’s voice, something Italy hasn’t done as long as one can remember,” Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, the League’s leader, said Monday.
For those aboard the Aquarius, Spain’s offer of docking rights at the port of Valencia was welcome news, although it did not provide a quick or easy solution. By Monday evening, the ship was more than 1,400 kilometres from Valencia and still awaiting formal instructions to head to Spain as weather forecasts predicted worsening conditions.
It was unclear if the days of sailing west it would take to get to Spain were feasible, SOS Méditerranée Maritime Operations Manager Antoine Laurent said. The traumatized, exhausted passengers include 120 minors, many of them travelling alone, and seven pregnant women. Several migrants had water in their lungs, suffered hypothermia or burns from a mix of boat fuel and seawater while in their traffickers’ boats.
Malta had food and water ferried Monday to the Aquarius, which was running out of supplies. A doctor aboard the ship said one passenger had to be revived after he was rescued.
Even as the Aquarius’ crew grappled with the logistics, Italy vowed to block other rescue boats, including the Dutchflagged Sea-Watch 3, another aid group’s boat.
Despite the League’s stance, an Italian coast guard vessel with 936 migrants and two migrants’ bodies on board was headed toward Catania, Sicily, where it was expected to dock on Tuesday evening, Italian news agency ANSA said.