BRUSSELS: Five EUstates agreed to take in scores of migrants stranded for weeks on board acrowded rescue ship, EU authorities said yesterday, ending a prolonged standoffwith Rome over their fate. The around one hundred mostly African migrants,picked up in the Mediterranean from early August onwards by the Open Arms, hadbeen forced to remain on the Spanish-registered vessel after the Italiangovernment refused to allow it to dock in line with a closed ports policy itadopted last year.
They finallydisembarked on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa on Tuesday night after anItalian prosecutor ordered the ship's seizure and evacuation. Several of themigrants jumped overboard and tried to swim to shore. Spain, France, Germany,Luxembourg and Portugal had agreed to take all of them in, said a EuropeanCommission spokeswoman in Brussels. Authorities in Madrid and Lisbon confirmedtheir readiness to participate.
Steady flow ofrefugees
A succession ofcharity vessels has struggled over the past year to bring migrants rescued atsea to Italian shores. The country's far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvinihas taken a tough line on migrant entry since the coalition government he formspart of took office in June 2018. With the continuous flow of refugeesdesperate to cross from Africa to Europe, the Commission said it was seekingrecipient states for the migrants on board a second charity ship, theNorwegian-flagged Ocean Viking, whose disembarkation Salvini had also sought toprevent. The ship is carrying 356 migrants.
Refinitiv datapinpointed that vessel west of the Maltese island of Gozo. Salvini, who hasclashed with Italy's court system over his attempts to veto landings, says thecountry has borne too much responsibility for handling migration to Europe.This month the coalition his League party formed with the 5-Star movementcollapsed.
Signs of theimpact of the migration crisis were also evident in Madrid, where the governmentsaid the Open Arms was not authorized to carry out rescues, only to providehumanitarian aid. The charity had previously been threatened with a fine if itcontinued to perform rescues. Asked if the government would sanction Open Arms,Spain's acting deputy prime minister Carmen Calvo declined to answer directly,telling Cadena Ser radio that no one was above the law, "including a shiplike this."
EuropeanCommission spokeswoman Tove Ernst said the five countries receiving the OpenArms migrants would register them and make necessary checks and transportarrangements, meaning the relocation from Lampedusa would take some time."The Commission will ...do its utmost to support and help to ensure thatprocedures are as swift as possible," she said. EU states have been atloggerheads over migration since a spike in Mediterranean arrivals in 2015,with bitter feuds over how to handle refugees and migrants damaging the bloc'sunity. EU leaders are due to discuss the issue again when they meet in Brusselsmid-October. - Reuters