Refused by Malta and Italy, the ship with 60 migrants heads to Barcelona

Saved by the Spanish non-governmental organization Proactiva in international waters, the 60 migrants rescued this Saturday were still waiting for one country to authorize its landing – they were rejected by Italy and Malta, who have reaffirmed their refusal to accept more boats. – but now the situation seems more controlled with the Catalan permission to dock the ship. They come from Palestine, South Sudan, Mali, Syria, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Eritrea, Egypt, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, from Libya, Bangladesh and Guinea, but they have no precise direction.

Laura Lanuza of Proactiva, explained that one of the ships involved in the rescue contacted the rescue coordination centers in Italy and Malta, who refused to land, so that the contact with Spain has been maintained for a safe harbor. Meanwhile indications, the Spanish vessel, the Open Arms, is headed to the north of the Mediterranean, added the same source, even before they know that they could enter the Catalan port.

In the social network Facebook, the Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini of the party of the far right has already announced that Proactiva's boats "may forget to arrive in an Italian port" , after criticizing the NGO for being ingested in an operation that should have been conducted by the Libyan authorities. The minister accused the organizations of fomenting illegal immigration and enriching the mafias of the failed Libyan state and as a solution argued that "the fewer people leave, the less people die."

Malta also closed its ports to the NGO to have allowed access to the boat of the German Lifeline organization, which was carrying 233 migrants and who had been unable to. dock for six days after Italy's refusal. Portugal was one of the countries that offered help in this case. Although the number of migrants arriving in Europe is well below that of 2017, migration has politically divided the leaders of the European Union, particularly in view of the positions expressed by the nationalist parties.

In the waters of the Mediterranean this Saturday another 270 migrants were intercepted by Libyan patrols in a boat that had left the beaches of Libya, according to local Coast Guard spokesman Ayub Qasem. The same official stated that the vessel had been detected about 15 miles off the town of Al Hamis, east of Tripoli, and that among the pbadengers, most of the sub-Saharan and Asian countries had 80 women and 11 children. This week, Libyan patrols intercepted some 1,200 migrants off the west coast of the country.