France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal and Romania have agreed to take in the 356 migrants on board the rescue ship. The ship received permission to disembark the migrants in Malta.
There is a "psychological emergency" for the migrants on the Ocean Viking, according to Luca Pigozzi, a doctor onboard the rescue ship. The Ocean Viking has been waiting for a port to disembark for almost two weeks.
The following is an account given by Mohammed, the only survivor of a sea journey in which 14 people died of the hardships suffering during 11 days at sea.
After the fourth rescue in four days, NGO rescue ship Ocean Viking now has over 350 migrants on board waiting for a safe harbor - but the vessel is only equipped to carry 200 to 250 people. Italy and Malta continue to deny entry into their ports.
The Times of Malta has published a report claiming that migrants were subjected to ill treatment on a film set for an Italian production. Among them was a pregnant women. Several crew members reportedly resigned following the incident.
Private rescue missions are increasingly facing rejection by ports in Italy and now Malta. One particular vessel, the Ocean Viking, is now prepared for all emergencies on board because of this — including pregnancies and births.
Last year, the European Union planned to introduce reforms to its migration policies, aimed at gaining better control over the migration situation into Europe. What's left of all those plans one year on?
The Ocean Viking, a new rescue vessel run by SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders (MSF), is on its way to the search and rescue (SAR) zone off Libya. The announcement comes eight months after the two charities were forced to cease operations.
The latest migrant standoff in the Mediterranean has ended with 40 rescued at sea being transferred to Malta. The EU deal with Malta comes as another rescue ship with 123 migrants remains blocked from Italian waters.
The private rescue vessel "Alan Kurdi," run by the private search-and-rescue charity Sea-Eye, confirmed that it would not enter Italian territorial waters after picking up 40 migrants at sea yesterday. The rescued migrants reportedly hail from Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Mali, Congo and Cameroon.
The phenomenon of human trafficking is ever more of concern and there has been a rise in criminal gangs focusing on this type of illegal activity, said the Order of Malta ahead of the World Day against Trafficking in Persons 2019 on July 30.
Calls for a political solution to sharing out the migrants arriving from the Mediterranean have been coming from almost all sides of the debate for some time. Now the EU Commissioner responsible for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos, has proposed a new solution.