MV Lifeline to enter Maltese harbours on Wednesday; 234 persons on board to be taken by 8 countries; MV Lifeline to be impounded and NGO investigated
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The charity boat Lifeline docked at Malta on Wednesday evening, bringing to an end a saga which had more than 200 migrants stranded at sea for six days.
Permission for the ship to dock at Boiler’s Wharf in Senglea was given after eight European Union member states agreed to jointly distribute the 234 migrants aboard amongst themselves, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said.
Four of the migrants, including three babies, were taken straight to hospital upon arrival. The rest were taken to the reception centre at Marsa.
Earlier:
Maltese Media: Eight European Union member states have agreed to jointly distribute 237 migrants aboard a sea-stranded migrant rescue vessel amongst themselves, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said on Wednesday.
Speaking at a press conference at Castille, Dr Muscat said that the MV Lifeline would enter Maltese harbours on Wednesday evening and its 234 migrant passengers brought ashore.
Muscat said that the countries participating in this exercise are France, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Malta.
He said that when the situation developed a few days ago, he had immediately embarked on a diplomatic exercise to find a solution before the matter escalated into a humanitarian crisis.
He said there was a two-faceted approach, the first was to find an agreement via which several countries would share the migrants who are on board the vessel.
The second was to impound the vessel which flouted international maritime law.
He said Malta was always in line with international law and it had sent supplies to the vessel three times over the past days.
The vessel will be impounded by Maltese authorities, pending investigation.
Muscat said the ship will be impounded and the captain investigated on at least two counts: the seemingly inadequate registration of the ship with the Dutch authorities and the decision to switch off its transponder at various times. The Prime Minister said that according to the Dutch authorities the ship was “stateless”.
Both Malta and Italy have accused the ship’s captain of ignoring orders to hand over rescued migrants to Libya’s coast guard, and Malta’s government has also noted that the ship was registered as a pleasure craft and therefore should not have been conducting sea rescues in the first place.
NGOs have defended the captain’s decision by arguing that Libya is not a safe harbour and that disembarking people there would violate international law.
