Aquarius Boat With 141 Migrants On Board Docks In Maltese Port - Reports
Rukhshan Mir (@rukhshanmir) Published August 15, 2018 | 08:31 PM
Migrant rescue vessel Aquarius with 141 passengers on board arrived in a port in Malta on Wednesday after five days of sailing in international waters because of the refusal of several Mediterranean countries to accept it, local media reported.
MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th August, 2018) Migrant rescue vessel Aquarius with 141 passengers on board arrived in a port in Malta on Wednesday after five days of sailing in international waters because of the refusal of several Mediterranean countries to accept it, local media reported.
After the arrival, migrants were registered and sent to medical control, the Times of Malta newspaper reported.
It is expected that the rescued migrants will be sent to the reception center in the Maltese city of Marsa and then distributed among the countries that have agreed to accept them, including France, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain or Portugal.
Humanitarian organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders) welcomed the boat's arrival in the port and European states' willingness to accept the rescued migrants.
"MSF is relieved that a place of safety has been found for the 141 vulnerable people rescued on the Mediterranean. ... We welcome the news that France, Germany, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain have also agreed to share responsibility in a coordinated European response," the charity said in a statement.
Still, long-term solutions addressing the humanitarian and migration crisis in the Mediterranean are still needed, MSF noted.
"This is the responsibility of the EU as a whole, and we look forward to seeing more concrete examples of European leadership and solidarity on this issue in the future. However, we remain gravely concerned about the current situation on Central Mediterranean and the future of humanitarian action at sea," it concluded.
Earlier in the week, EU Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) welcomed Malta's decision to accept the vessel.
This summer, the issue of migrant rescue vessels has been especially urgent, with a number of European states, where migrants fleeing armed conflicts and economic crises in Africa and the middle East are arriving by sea, taking a tough stance on accepting arrivals.
In June, Italy and Malta already denied entry to the Aquarius that was then carrying over 600 rescued migrants, while Spain eventually allowed the vessel to dock in Valencia. However, both Spain and Italy denied entry to another rescue vessel, the Lifeline, later in June.
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