The private rescue ships Ocean Viking and Sea-Watch 3 have called on Malta and Italy to immediately assign them a safe harbor.
After several rescue operations on Sunday and at the beginning of the week in the central Mediterranean off the coast of Libya and Tunisia, 555 boat migrants are on board the Ocean Viking, while the Sea-Watch 3 has taken in 250 migrants from inflatable and wooden boats that are unsuitable for the sea.
Matthias Rüb
Political correspondent for Italy, the Vatican, Albania and Malta based in Rome.
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"The situation on board is intolerable," said a spokeswoman for the organization SOS Méditerranée, which operates the ship Ocean Viking.
The people suffered from the high waves and the stifling heat.
Many are seasick and dehydrated, and some have been burned.
Salvini threatens to leave the coalition
Since Malta usually refuses to allow aid ships with migrants on board to enter its territorial waters and ports, Rome is required to assign each ship to a port in Sicily.
According to the Interior Ministry in Rome, around 29,500 boat migrants reached Italy this year, more than twice as many as in the same period of the previous year and a good seven times as many as between January and July 2019.
Former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini from the right-wing national Lega threatened Prime Minister Mario Draghi with the withdrawal of his party from the coalition if the cabinet and above all Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese did nothing about the growing number of boat migrants by the end of August. "If Lamorgese is not able to solve the problem, she should draw the conclusions from it," demanded Salvini. The Lega could "no longer support a government that accepts this number of migrant arrivals," said Salvini.