The German sea rescue ship Humanity 1 is allowed to bring more than 250 migrants rescued from distress to an Italian port.
The authorities assigned the city of Bari on the Italian mainland as the port of call for the ship with 261 refugees and migrants on board.
This was confirmed by the organization SOS Humanity on Saturday.
The night before, the ship's captain had hesitated because Bari was a long way from Humanity 1's position in the Mediterranean Sea east of Sicily.
Then those responsible decided to start the more than 300 nautical miles despite bad weather forecasts so that the migrants could go ashore in the city on the Adriatic coast.
After there had been a very long wait at the beginning of November before Italy allowed such ships to enter ports, even the organizations were surprised that Rome responded to requests within a few days.
On Friday, Médecins Sans Frontières assigned the “Geo Barents” to the port of Salerno as a landing point – although this is also a long way from Sicily.
It was initially unclear whether all migrants were allowed to leave the ships in Bari and Salerno.
In November, the new right-wing government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni initially only allowed women, children and a few men to go ashore.
The remaining men were only able to disembark after two days.