This archive report was first published on 21 August 2019.
On Tuesday, Spain's Socialist government announced that it would send a naval vessel, the Audaz, to the Italian island of Lampedusa to rescue migrants stranded on a rescue boat, the Open Arms. The migrants had been at sea for 19 days and were waiting to be brought ashore despite an Italian ban on private rescue ships docking.
Italian Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli welcomed Spain's move, saying it was the most adequate solution to the humanitarian emergency on board the Open Arms. However, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who has taken a tough line on migrant entry, suggested that the charity running the Open Arms was exaggerating the problems on board.
Salvini has accused the charity of becoming 'taxis' for people smugglers and has said that Italy is no longer the 'refugee camp of Europe'. He has also suggested that Spain's decision to send a warship to rescue the migrants was a sign of the country's 'coherence and strength'.
However, Toninelli, who controls the Coast Guard, had earlier offered to take the migrants on a Coast Guard vessel to Spain under the condition that Madrid de-register the Open Arms ship by removing its Spanish flag. He said he hoped that Spain would now commit to stopping Open Arms' activity in the future.
Spain and five other European Union nations have offered to take the migrants, but the details of the offers have yet to be finalised.
On Tuesday, nine migrants jumped into the water from the Open Arms, and Italian coastguards went to their rescue. The charity running the Open Arms said that the situation on board was desperate, with migrants sleeping jammed together on deck and sharing two toilets.
