MADRID • Spain yesterday said it has accepted an offer from France to take in migrants from a rescue ship following a turbulent week surrounding the stricken vessel.
The Aquarius rescue ship, which is due to arrive in Spain today with more than 600 people on board, has been at the heart of a major migration row between European Union member states.
"The French government will work together with the Spanish government to handle the arrival of the migrants," Spain's Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo said. "France will accept migrants who express the wish to go there" once they have been processed in Valencia.
Chartered by a French aid organisation, the rescue vessel took in 629 migrants including many children and pregnant women off Libya's coast last weekend.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which along with French charity SOS Mediterranee are treating migrants on board the Aquarius, said two passengers drowned last weekend when the ship first encountered difficulties off Libya.
The passengers come from 26 countries, mainly from Africa but also Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, according to MSF.
Among them are more than 400 men and 80 women as well as 11 under-13s and about 90 adolescents.
Italy's new populist government and Malta refused to let the ship dock in their ports, accusing each other of failing to meet their humanitarian and EU commitments.
Spain stepped in and agreed to receive the refugees. France - which had angered Rome by branding it irresponsible over the vessel rejection - offered on Thursday to welcome those migrants who "meet the criteria for asylum".
The plight of the Aquarius has again highlighted the failure of EU member states to work together to deal with the influx of migrant arrivals since 2015.
After Rome's decision to ban the Aquarius, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte met on Friday and agreed that the EU should set up asylum processing centres in Africa to prevent "voyages of death". They also demanded "profound" changes to the EU's asylum rules which put the migrant burden on their port of entry to Europe - mainly Italy and Greece.
Italy's far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini warned yesterday that other NGO-operated rescue ships would also be banned from docking at an Italian port.
"While the Aquarius is sailing towards Spain, two Dutch NGO operated vessels (Lifeline and Seefuchs) have arrived off the Libyan coast, to wait for their human cargoes once the people smugglers abandon them," he said in a Facebook post.
"These people should know that Italy no longer wants to be any part of this business of clandestine immigration and they will have to look for other ports to go to," he said.
Meanwhile, a poll published in Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper showed that 59 per cent of Italians agreed with the government's decision to block non-Italian ships, saying it would discourage human traffickers from trying to smuggle migrants.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS
