Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said that Malta committed itself to rescue 450 migrants on a boat in its territorial waters, but then nobody turned up. But Malta replied that when notified of the presence of the migrants, the vessel was closer to Lampedusa than to Malta and that the migrants wanted to proceed to the Italian island.
In a tweet tbhis afternoon, Salvini said that this morning a boat with 450 migrants sailed into Maltese waters, and Malta, he said, committed itself to help.
But no help was provided, and the ship is now sailing towards Italy, Salvini said.
“Malta… should know that this ship will not dock in an Italian port,” he said.
Italian news agency ANSA said Italian foreign minister Enzo Milanesi, in a note to Malta’s ambassador in Rome, informed Malta that the Italian rescue coordination centre at 4:25am was informed that a boat with some 450 people aboard was in Maltese search and rescue area, and that there were minors aboard with urgent need of help.
Maltese authorities were immediately informed, and after some 2 hours said they had assumed coordination of the rescue ops and was sending a plane which spotted the boat drifting in Matlese SAR area, ANSA reported.
At that point Malta sent Rome a request to see if Italy would cooperate. After no rescue vessels were sent, ANSA reported that Italy’s foreign ministry asked Maltese authories “to carry out with maximum urgency their SAR responsibilities”. The Italian foreign minister insisted the port of disembarkation should be a Maltese port since Malta is coordinating and event is in Malta’s SAR area.
But Malta gave a different version of the events.
The Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC) of Malta, a Department of Information statement said, was notified by MRCC Rome of the presence of a large fishing vessel with approximately 450 migrants on board as soon as the vessel transited from the Libyan SRR to the Maltese SRR.
At the time that the information was relayed, the vessel was about 53 nautical miles away from Lampedusa and 110 nautical miles from Malta.
When contacted, the persons on board the vessel informed RCC Malta that their intention was to proceed to Lampedusa, the statement said.
One has to stress that given that the vessel was on the high seas, RCC Malta did not have the authority to give it instructions, the government said.
RCC Malta monitored the vessel in order to ensure immediate assistance should it have been required. The vessel is now in Italian territorial waters as indicated on the map.
It is pertinent to note that Malta has satisfied all obligation under the applicable international conventions on coordination of Search and Rescue events.
Italy and Malta have been at each other's throats for several weeks on migration issues.
Last month, the MV Lifeline with 234 rescued migrants on board, was left stranded out at sea for almost a week until Malta brokered a nine-nation deal. Earlier, the two countries were also in dispute over another NGO ship, the Aquarius, which eventually docked in Spain.