Democratic Party (PD) leader Elly Schlein on Friday accused the government of prolonging the ordeal of the survivors of a migrant-boat disaster in the Mediterranean in which 60 people are thought to have died.
The 25 survivors are among 359 people aboard the Ocean Viking after being picked up at sea by the search-and-rescue ship run by the SOS Mediterranee NGO.
The Ocean Viking has been assigned Ancona, on the Adriatic Coast, as its port of safety, which is some distance from its current location and it will take several days for it to arrive.
The survivors were on a dinghy that had left Libya a week before and had drifted in unseaworthy condition for at least six days with no food or water after the engine broke down.
"They were adrift for a week, they saw 60 people traveling with them die of starvation and burns, and now the government is forcing the survivors to sail for another five days on the Ocean Viking to disembark in Ancona," Schlein said.
"To do this to them after what they have been through is inhuman and intolerable, not fitting of a country like Italy.
"We ask the government to intervene and assign a closer port.
Let us stop this disgrace".
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