The ship of the Italian Coast Guard „Gregoretti“, which has taken 135 people on board, waits in front of the port of the Sicilian city of Catania for instructions to dock. The Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini of the right-wing populist Lega Party refuses the ship’s entry into a domestic port, Italian media reported yesterday.
The government in Rome had „officially asked the EU Commission to coordinate the distribution of migrants on board,“ sources in the Interior Ministry said. The ship should not be allowed to land in Italy until other EU member states have agreed to accept it.
EU Commission urges Member States to resolve
The people were on the Mediterranean with two different dinghies. One of the boats was discovered Thursday by Tunisian fishermen. The Italian coastguard, who was called to help, took over the 80 or so people in distress.
About 50 more people were discovered on Wednesday by an Italian fishing boat – in the jurisdiction of the Maltese Coast Guard, some 50 kilometers off the Mediterranean island. However, the Maltese Coast Guard had not responded, said the captain of the Italian fishing boat, Carlo Giarratano, on his return to Sicily on Thursday in the morning.
Finally, the Italian Coast Guard arrived and brought the approximately 50 people to the rescue ship „Gregoretti“, on which there were already the people discovered by the Tunisian fishermen. On Friday, the EU Commission had again urged member states to come up with a solution for distributing rescued migrants and refugees.
