Italy threatens to send back stranded migrants to Libya

ITALY’S far-right interior minister threatened yesterday to send “back to Libya” nearly 180 people stranded for three days on an Italian coastguard ship if the EU did not step in to resolve another migrant row with Malta.

The 177 people have been sitting off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa since Thursday after being saved by the coastguard’s Diciotti vessel and Italy is battling with Malta over who should take them in.

“Either Europe decides to seriously offer Italy some concrete help, beginning with, for example, the 180 immigrants on board the Diciotti ship, or we will be forced to do what will definitively end the human traffickers’ business. That means taking the people saved in the sea back to Libya,” Matteo Salvini said in a statement.

Earlier the Maltese government, which on Wednesday allowed 141 migrants aboard the Aquarius vessel to dock after an agreement to distribute them to a number of European countries, underlined its refusal of Italy’s demands.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said that the migrants’ boat was not in distress and that they also refused help.

The spat between Italy and Malta is the second in just over a month. It follows the battle over 450 people rescued from a fishing ship who were eventually allowed to disembark in Italy after five European countries agreed to take 50 each and in June, Malta had to take the German NGO boat Lifeline carrying 234 migrants.