The former Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini on Saturday appeared before a Palermo judge in connection with a 2019 incident during which he blocked migrants at sea. He faces charges of abduction and of failing to carry out an act as public official.
After the Open Arms ship brought 265 rescued migrants to Italy, the crew was isolated and placed in mandatory quarantine. The Spanish NGO vessel will remain in the harbor of Port Empedocle in the province of Agrigento, Sicily.
After rescuing 265 migrants in two operations in the Mediterranean Sea within three days, Italy has allowed the Spanish flagged rescue ship Open Arms to bring its passengers to the Italian island of Sicily. Many of the rescuees are to be taken to a quarantine ship.
The Spanish rescue group Open Arms has rescued around 170 people from the Mediterranean Sea. Several small children were in the boat drifting off the coast of Libya.
The Open Arms rescue ship, run by the Spanish organization of the same name, said on Sunday that it was leaving Trapani on the Italian island of Sicily to head back to Barcelona. There it will change its crew and head back out for its 79th rescue mission in the Mediterranean Sea.
Over 200 migrants have disembarked the humanitarian vessel Open Arms off the coast of Sicily and are undergoing quarantine. About a hundred migrants have died in the Mediterranean Sea this week alone.
More than 100 migrants were rescued by the Open Arms from a sinking boat in the central Mediterranean on Wednesday. Help came too late for at least six people, including a baby.
For migrants crossing the Mediterranean from Libya towards Europe on Tuesday, November 10, it was literally a matter of life and death. News agencies reported that 13 people drowned off the Libyan coast, and on a different boat 88 people were rescued and transferred to the humanitarian rescue ship Open Arms.
Italy has given permission for 140 migrants to disembark the Spanish rescue ship Open Arms. Over the past two days more than 100 migrants jumped off the rescue ship stranded off Sicily and tried to swim to shore.
The humanitarian rescue ship Open Arms rescued a further 77 migrants on Thursday night. Among those rescued were 11 women and two children. The ship was already carrying 83 previously rescued migrants.
The Italian Senate has revoked former interior minister Matteo Salvini's immunity, thereby paving the way for another trial over his harsh migrant policy. A conviction might spell the end of the former interior minister's political career.
In an unprecedented case, the captain of an Italian commercial vessel is to be taken to court for returning migrants he rescued in the Mediterranean to civil war country Libya. The man is accused of violating international law, under which Libya is not a safe harbor.