UNHCR Hails Malta's Decision To Accept Migrant Boat Aquarius, Calls For Coherent Approach

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said on Wednesday that it supported Malta's decision to allow the migrant rescue vessel Aquarius, with 141 passengers on board, to dock at its ports, and called for a coherent approach to disembarking rescued migrants.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th August, 2018) The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said on Wednesday that it supported Malta's decision to allow the migrant rescue vessel Aquarius, with 141 passengers on board, to dock at its ports, and called for a coherent approach to disembarking rescued migrants.

The Maltese government authorized the vessel to dock in its ports on Tuesday, after France, Germany, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain agreed that they would then accept the rescued migrants.

"UNHCR welcomes the end to the deadlock around the Aquarius and the fact that 141 children, women and men are no longer stranded at sea ... But the situation should never have come to this in the first place. It is wrong, dangerous and immoral to keep rescue ships wandering the Mediterranean while governments compete on who can take the least responsibility," UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said, as quoted by the UNHCR's website.

He added that it was necessary to manage the disembarkation of migrants more coherently and on a regional level.

"There is an urgent need to break away from the current run of impasses and ad-hoc boat-by-boat approaches on where to dock rescued passengers .

.. Only with clearly identifiable ports of safety will shipmasters feel confident when responding to distress calls that theyll be able to promptly disembark passengers, and wont become objects of lengthy negotiations," Grandi said.

This is not the first time the Aquarius has been in the spotlight this summer. Italy and Spain refused to accept it last week, and Malta initially supported this move. In June, Spain allowed the vessel, which was then carrying over 600 migrants, to dock in its ports only after Italy and Malta had categorically refused to do so.

As Europe continues to face a large influx of migrants fleeing armed conflicts and economic crises in Africa and the middle East, the countries where migrants arrive by sea are taking a tougher stance on new arrivals, repeatedly denying entry to rescue vessels.

According to the International Organization for Migration, over 61,500 new arrivals by sea have been registered in 2018, as well as over 1,500 people who are considered dead or missing.