For days, the days of uncertainty have come to an end for 104 refugees. After a one-week blockade on the Mediterranean, there is a solution for the distribution of the migrants of the German rescue ship "Eleonore". Germany will take up 43 of the people, it said on Tuesday evening from the Federal Ministry of the Interior in Berlin.
The other migrants are being picked up by France, Ireland, Portugal and Luxembourg, a spokeswoman for the European Commission said. The Brussels authority now organizes the distribution of migrants from Italy. An EU special meeting scheduled for 19 September to find a solution for the distribution of boat refugees has been postponed until 21 September.
The "Eleonore" had laid on Monday after a week-long blockade on the Mediterranean Sea in Sicily. The situation on board was considered sensitive for days. The registered as a private motor yacht boat was much too small for the many rescued on board. On the night of Monday, a thunderstorm was added. The German captain Claus-Peter Reisch then called out the state of emergency and drove despite prohibition of the Italian government to Sicily.
Investigations against captain
The public prosecutor's office of Ragusa is now investigating Reisch for favoring illegal immigration, the news agency Ansa reported. However, no one had approached Reisch, a spokesman for the aid organization Mission Lifeline, which supports the mission with Eleonore, the news agency dpa.
Italy and Malta repeatedly refuse rescue services with migrants on board the entrance to their ports. They make it a condition that other EU countries take away the migrants. This commitment usually comes after laborious discussions. That's why rescued migrants had to stay on board for weeks at a time. Recently, Germany, France, Ireland, Luxembourg and Portugal each time took migrants in such cases.
The EU special meeting aims to find a temporary solution to such situations. Malta had invited the competent ministers of Germany, France, Italy, Malta and the EU Presidency of Finland. The shift by two days has, according to information of the German Press Agency organizational reasons.
Rescue ship confiscated
For the 31 or so migrants who were able to leave the rescue vessel "Mare Jonio", which had also been blocked for days, there is still no solution. Italian authorities seized the ship shortly after his arrival at the port of the island of Lampedusa, as the Italian aid organization Mediterranea Saving Humans announced on Tuesday. In addition, a fine of 300,000 euros had been imposed. However, for medical reasons on Lampedusa invest.
The rescue vessel "Ocean Viking", which had spent two weeks in international waters between Malta and Italy in August, has been back in service since Monday evening to pick up migrants outside Libya
