It is a wave of hope for the humanitarian ship Ocean Viking, after the storm of the past few days. A medical team went on board to carry out tests on the 180 migrants rescued. Sent by the authorities to the Sicilian port of Pozzallo, she "established the absence of particular health problems and also reported that the tensions recorded on the boat (from the NGO SOS Mediterranean) are being eased", a source at the Italian Interior Ministry said on Saturday July 4.

The migrants must then be transferred to a quarantine vessel currently located in Porto Empedocle, on the southern coast of Sicily. "The situation is being carefully monitored with a view to the transhipment of migrants, scheduled for Monday July 6, on the Moby Zaza", according to the same source.

Brawls, suicide attempts, physical threats to the crew: the tension had become such on board that the humanitarian ship had declared itself Friday in "state of emergency", a first. Since Thursday, several fights had broken out, mainly between ethnic groups, and six suicide attempts had been recorded.

The 180 migrants, including Pakistanis, North Africans, Eritreans and Nigerians, were rescued by the SOS Mediterranean ship during four separate operations, on June 25 and 30. Among them, 25 are minors.

It has been a week since the ship made its first request to allocate a port to disembark these people, but after several requests to the Italian and Maltese authorities - one of the rescues was carried out on waters dependent on these two countries, while the other three were in those of Malta - the Ocean Viking had so far received only negative responses from the two countries.

With AFP

The France 24 week summary invites you to come back to the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news everywhere with you! Download the France 24 app

google-play-badge_FR