Spanish warship collects migrants in Italy

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A Spanish warship collected 15 rescued migrants from an Italian port after transiting the Mediterranean to fetch the small group in a high-profile manoeuvre contrasting with Italy’s refusal to accept them.

Madrid dispatched the ship a week ago to collect the migrants ending a prolonged standoff between Italian authorities and a Spanish-registered private rescue boat which plucked more than 100 people, most Africans, from the sea off Libya.

France, Germany, Luxembourg and Portugal agreed to take the rest of the migrants but only Spain, which traded angry words with Rome during the standoff, sent a ship.

“This is the kind of situation where you see countries taking political or symbolic actions that don’t necessarily make economic sense,” said Elisa De Pieri, a London-based researcher with Amnesty International, adding rescued migrants are usually transferred by plane.

Italy denies port access to non-government rescue ships, agreeing to bring migrants ashore only if other European nations commit to take them, in which case the migrants are usually flown out in hours.

After trading insults with anti-immigrant Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini – Spain’s defence minister accused him of a “lack of humanity” – Madrid agreed to take the migrants and dispatched the warship, intending to collect them from the still-stranded rescue boat, Open Arms.

Hours after the Audaz left from Cádiz on Spain’s Atlantic coast, the standoff ended and migrants were brought ashore on Lampedusa.

Instead of turning back, the warship, equipped with artillery and machine guns, sailed to Lampedusa last Friday, its arrival broadcast by international news media – only to find the migrants would be transferred to nearby Sicily, where they were taken aboard.

Spain says there was no point in calling the ship back and arranging a flight for the migrants.

“We are the first country arriving in Lampedusa picking up migrants. If we cancelled the ship operation and started a new plan to bring them by other means, we would have been delayed,” a government source said.

Amnesty said the saga underlined Europe’s failure to deal with African migrants crossing the Mediterranean.

“It’s becoming the new norm for rescue ships to be left in limbo for several weeks. It’s a violation of human rights,” De Pieri said.