The 406 migrants and refugees currently aboard the Sea-Watch 3 will be allowed to disembark in Pozzallo, Italy. They had been rescued in the Mediterranean on Sunday and Monday; several migrants have since been evacuated from the ship due to medical emergencies.
An Italian court has sentenced a captain to a year in prison for handing migrants his ship's crew rescued over to the Libyan coast guard in 2018. The incident had sparked heated debate in Italy.
The Geo Barents rescue ship, run by the medical charity Doctors without Borders (MSF), docked in a Sicilian port on Wednesday and disembarked the 60 migrants it had rescued just over a week earlier.
Within just a few hours, over 800 migrants hailing from Syria, Bangladesh, Morocco and Egypt landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa on several boats. Italian media reported that women and children were among the 686 passengers of the largest of the boats, which had set off in Libya.
The bodies of eight migrants, thought to be of North African origin, have been found on beaches in southern Spain since Sunday. One child and three women were among the corpses. The authorities said they could have come from one or several small boats.
The last remaining migrants and refugees left the Ocean Viking on Tuesday. The rescue ship had landed in Pozzallo, southern Italy, on Sunday with 549 rescuees onboard.
Two NGO vessels have saved some 250 migrants from distress in the Mediterranean Sea over two days. The number of arrivals to Italy via the central Mediterranean, at present one of the most dangerous migration paths in the world, continues to rise.
Yet another boat carrying African migrants has capsized off Libya's coast. This time, at least 57 people are presumed dead, the UN migration agency said. More than 1,100 people have perished in the Mediterranean so far this year.
The new Italian Coast Guard General Commander, Admiral Nicola Carlone, has emphasized that rescue at sea in the Mediterranean is, and remains, a "stable pillar" of the institution.
The Red Cross has said its teams would join the crew of the Ocean Viking rescue ship from next month; it also launched an emergency appeal for funds. Meanwhile, German charity Sea-Eye has announced it will sell its search and rescue vessel Alan Kurdi to the new Italian organization ResQ.
Morocco's navy says it has rescued 344 migrants, including women and children, after their boats ran into difficulty in the Mediterranean and Atlantic. Migrant arrivals to Spain are on track to match last year's numbers.
In the first six months of 2021, the number of migrants who died at sea in an attempt to reach Europe more than doubled compared to the same period in 2020, according to UN migration agency IOM. Most migrants died on the central Mediterranean route or en route to Spain's Canaries.