A humanitarian aid ship carrying 64 rescued migrants was holding position in the Mediterranean Sea on Thursday as both Italy and Malta refused it safe harbour, leaving the migrants sleeping in cramped conditions on deck as a storm approached.
Their refusal sets the stage for another Mediterranean migrant standoff that can only be resolved if some European Union members agree to accept the asylum seekers.
Carlotta Weibl, spokeswoman for the German humanitarian organisation Sea-Eye, said the ship was near the Italian island of Lampedusa on Thursday.
“We have no idea yet where we can disembark,” Weibl told the Associated Press. “Malta says we can’t enter their waters and we are unlikely to get permission from Italy.”
Sea-Eye’s ship, the Alan Kurdi, rescued the migrants on Wednesday near Libya after the country’s authorities could not be reached. It did so as it was looking for another smuggling boat with 50 people that has been missing since Monday, and 40 other migrants missing at sea since last week.
“The chances are low that they are alive,” Weibl said.
The 64 people picked up included a newborn baby and a child, the group said. But Weibl said the ship is far too small for so many and that people were sleeping outdoors on deck as it began to rain.
Matteo Salvini, Italy’s hard-line interior minister, said that Italy would not accept the migrants and that since it was a German ship it should “go to Hamburg”.
Weibl said that suggestion was ridiculous. The German city of Hamburg is not even located on the Mediterranean Sea but on a river leading to the North Sea.
“It’s a journey of three to four weeks (to Hamburg). We don’t have food and water, so it’s completely out of the question,” she said.
Similar standoffs in recent months involving rescue ships hoping to reach Italy and Malta were eventually resolved when other EU members agreed to take some of the migrants.
However, many of those people remain in migrant centres in Malta and Italy.
The Alan Kurdi ship is named after a two-year-old Kurdish boy who drowned in the sea in 2015 as he and his family fled war in Syria. The image of his small, lifeless body washed ashore prompted an outpouring of sympathy for the plight of migrants.
However, the mood in Europe has turned against those making the dangerous journey even as the number of migrants making the dangerous sea crossing to Europe has dropped substantially since then.
Weibl said the Alan Kurdi is currently the only humanitarian ship operating in the Mediterranean because many governments have denied aid ships permission to operate.