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Germany To Take 50 Migrants Stranded Off Italian Coasts

  Germany said Sunday it had agreed with Italy to take in 50 of the 450 migrants aboard two EU border agency vessels, matching similar … Continue reading Germany To Take 50 Migrants Stranded Off Italian Coasts


FILES) In this file photo taken on November 04, 2016 The ‘Iuventa’, a rescue ship run by young German NGO ‘Jugend Rettet’ (Youth Saves), sails off the Libyan coast during a rescue mission in the Mediterranean Sea. Italy’s highest court of appeal on April 24, 2018 rejected a request by the German NGO Jugend Rettet to release its migrant rescue boat, impounded eight months ago on suspicion of facilitating illegal immigration. The Italian Court of Cassation did not say why it had turned down the NGO’s request for the release of the Iuventa, a 33-metre (110-foot) motorboat seized off the island of Lampedusa on August 2. At the time, the state police force had said that circumstantial evidence had come to light in a probe dating back to October 2016 which suggested the boat was being used for “activities facilitating illegal immigration”. ANDREAS SOLARO / AFP
A migrant ship (file copy)                                                                                         ANDREAS SOLARO / AFP

 

Germany said Sunday it had agreed with Italy to take in 50 of the 450 migrants aboard two EU border agency vessels, matching similar pledges by France and Malta.

Italy has since Saturday requested that its EU peers take some of the migrants stranded aboard the Frontex ships off the Italian coast.

A German government spokeswoman said in a statement that “Germany and Italy have agreed that, in view of the ongoing talks on intensified bilateral cooperation on asylum policy, Germany is ready to take in 50 people”.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte confirmed the deal on Sunday, writing on Facebook that 150 of the 450 migrants had now been accepted and the rest would soon be fairly distributed among other EU countries.

“This is the solidarity and responsibility we have always asked from Europe and now, after the results obtained at the last European Council, it is starting to become reality,” Conte said.

“Let’s continue on this path with firmness and respect for human rights.”

Conte had been in contact with his 27 EU peers, reminding them that they had agreed at their end-of-June summit on the need to share the migration burden.

Italy’s new populist government, which came to power on June 1, wants to block any further migrant arrivals by boat and has banned NGO rescue ships from docking in Italian ports, accusing them of aiding human traffickers.

The latest migrants, like thousands of others, had set sail from Libya in a single wooden vessel which was identified early Friday.

On Saturday morning, as the two Frontex vessels approached the boat, several migrants threw themselves overboard, prompting immediate efforts to rescue them, Italian sources said.

Eight women and children were taken to the Italian island of Lampedusa for medical treatment.

Spain’s new foreign minister Josep Borrell meanwhile Sunday said that the EU’s prized Schengen free-movement system was “beginning to disappear” under pressure from migrants arriving in the bloc.

“Through the back door, France, Italy and Germany have placed controls on the borders because of the migration crisis,” Borrell told the El Pais newspaper.

Spanish rescuers separately saved more than 340 migrants from the Mediterranean on Saturday.

AFP