Madrid will send a Navy ship to bring migrants with Open Arms in Spain
euronews (Russian) / youtube.com
A ship of the Spanish Navy will escort the ship of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) Proactiva Open Arms of migrants on Board to Mallorca (Autonomous community Balearic Islands). This is stated in a statement on Tuesday, the press release of the government of the Kingdom., which is quoted by TASS.
“A ship from the Spanish Navy is preparing this morning on the basis of the Company, to take a course on the Italian island of Lampedusa,” said the Cabinet. It specified that the ship for three days to sail to Italy, and then escorted “the ship NGOs Proactiva Open Arms to the port of Palma” on Mallorca. The government believes that this method “will allow to resolve this week a humanitarian emergency on Board,” Open Arms.
The ship on which there are 147 illegal immigrants, is 800 metres from the Italian island of Lampedusa. Migrants are on the ship for 19 days. But landing them on the shore was impossible because of the ban of the Italian authorities.
Earlier, the Spanish non-governmental organization Proactiva Open Arms has announced that it has received permission to evacuate eight people from the ship with migrants. “The situation aboard becomes more complicated every minute. Allowed the evacuation of eight people in need of urgent assistance, and one attendant” – said in a Twitter organization. There are also reports that at night a man jumped into the water to try to reach land. Then the water jumped nine people.
On Monday, the Spanish authorities offered Open Arms, on Board of which there were more than 100 migrants, head to the nearest port of the Kingdom. The ship, an NGO that regularly conducts operations to assist illegal immigrants, rescued most of the migrants more than two weeks ago in the waters of the Mediterranean sea. In turn, the organization proposed the idea to deliver the migrants to the Italian city of Catania, and from there by plane to Spain.
15 August, Prime Minister of Italy, Giuseppe Conte said that six EU countries are ready to take the migrants on Board the vessel. According to him, we are talking about Germany, Spain, Luxembourg, Portugal, Romania and France.
In 2015, due to the intensification of conflicts in several countries in the Middle East and North Africa has dramatically increased the number of persons arriving in Europe from these regions. The Mediterranean route is the main mode of delivery of migrants to the EU. The second flow conduit passes through the Balkans.