Migrants line up for breakfast on the sixth day as they wait for a safe port to disembark aboard the NGO Proactiva Open Arms Uno rescue boat in the central Mediterranean, August 22, 2022. REUTERS/Juan Medina /File Photo

ABOARD THE UN WITH OPEN ARMS, off Sicily, 25 August (Reuters) – About 30 nautical miles off the coast of Italian Sicily, 99 migrants await an update on their future after nine days at sea while that neighboring nations discuss who should receive them.

On August 17, the Spanish charity Open Arms rescued 101 migrants, mostly Egyptian men, from a rickety wooden boat off the coast of Tunisia that had been adrift since at least August 16. read more

One of the men needed urgent medical attention and was allowed to disembark in Italy with his companion, but the other migrants were told to stay on board the Open Arms Uno rescue vessel while he sought permission from Italy, Malta or Spain to disembark.

David Llado, head of mission on the Open Arms Uno, told Reuters that Malta had rejected a request to dock and that Italy had asked the Spanish-flagged ship to resolve the situation through Spanish state channels. . He has since asked the Spanish authorities to activate the protocol of collaboration between the States.

The situation on the bridge was “worsening by the hour”, he said. “The tension is rising rapidly due to the uncertainty as to why we are not given a port to disembark all these people.”

“Please do something. We are injured, weak and sick,” said one of the migrants, 19-year-old Rasel Miah.

The Italian government declined to comment while Spain’s Transport Ministry, which is in charge of ports and coastguards, said it had not received any request from Open Arms to dock at a Spanish port.

Italian media reported that some 1,200 migrants reached Italy on Wednesday in four different boats, including an NGO boat. An official, who declined to be named, said Italy was dealing with a large number of recent arrivals and was trying to process them as quickly as possible.

No figures were available for arrivals to Spain in recent weeks. Overall migrant arrivals by boat to Spain from January 1 to August 15 were down 4% year-on-year, but migration to the Canary Islands off Africa increased nearly 26% as sub-Saharan Africans fled insecurity and climate-related crises. Read more

Open Arms, which is mostly funded by small private contributions, has saved thousands of lives since it started operating in 2015.

Matteo Salvini, leader of Italy’s far-right League party and former interior minister, was on trial for kidnapping for his decision to stop more than 100 migrants on an Open Arms ship from landing in the country in 2019.

Reporting by Juan Medina; Additional reporting by Crispian Balmer in Rome and Joan Faus in Madrid; Written by Christina Thykjaer and Aislinn Laing; Editing by Lisa Shumaker

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