Migrants from the Open Arms: France sends a delegation from Ofpra

France will send a delegation from the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) to Italy to study the "quarantine" situations of migrants from the Open Arms ship it has pledged to host, said Wednesday the spokesperson of the government.

"These situations are not acceptable for migrants"

Migrants gathered in the Mediterranean by the Open Arms have landed on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday on the Italian island of Lampedusa, pursuant to a court decision taken given the high tensions on board after days of on-site not far from the coast. They were 147 on board at the arrival of the humanitarian ship near Lampedusa on Thursday, and a little over 80 after the evacuation to the island of several people having jumped on the water Tuesday and dozens of miners or sick the last days.

Migrants from the #OpenArms were finally able to disembark at night in Lampedusa. France will be in solidarity and will welcome 40 people in need of protection: a team from OFPRA will visit the site in the next few days.

Paris has pledged to welcome "forty people who can seek asylum in France," said Sibeth Ndiaye in the minutes of the Council of Ministers, and "sent on the spot or will do it in the next few moments a delegation of Ofpra that will review the situations ". In any case, she added, "these situations are a strong reminder of the importance of having a mechanism for managing migration issues at European level because otherwise these situations will be repeated and are obviously not acceptable for migrants "trying to cross the Mediterranean.

After the arrival of the survivors of the Open Arms, the Ocean Viking, the last humanitarian boat present in the Mediterranean, was still waiting Wednesday for the designation of a port where to disembark the 356 people he has collected on board.

Madrid does not exclude financially sanction the Open Arms

The Spanish government did not rule Wednesday to sanction financially the NGO Open Arms, which had not received authorization to carry out relief operations off the coast of Libya. After waiting several days near Lampedusa and sending Tuesday by Madrid a ship of his navy to recover the migrants, they finally landed on the island of Lampedusa. "We are in a state of law, everyone knows what he can do and what he can not do," Carmen Calvo, vice-president of the socialist government, told Cadena Ser Radio.