Spain offers to take over 100 migrants stranded on an NGO’s ship off Italy’s coast

The migrants, most of whom are African, were picked up by the Open Arms boat off the coast of Libya and have been waiting to disembark on the southern Italian island of Lampedusa.

“We do not accept Spain as a port to go because we are in a state of extreme humanitarian emergency. What they need is to be disembarked now,” Open Arms’ spokeswoman said, France 24 said.

“It is unthinkable to navigate for six days; that is what it would takes for us to arrive to Algeciras.”

‘We are in a state of humanitarian emergency,’ Open Arms’s Laura Lanuza told France 24.

After the charity rejected the plan to go to Algeciras, in southern Spain, the Spanish government offered the captain of the boat the option to dock at the nearest Spanish port, but the prime minister’s office said the government had not received an answer, Reuters reported on Sunday evening.

An Open Arms spokeswoman confirmed to Reuters that the boat still had not answered Spain’s proposal.

France has offered to take in 40 people from the Open Arms, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner told AFP on Sunday.

At least four migrants, wearing life vests, jumped into the sea to try to swim to the Italian island of Lampedusa. Open Arms founder Oscar Camps tweeted a video of the attempt, saying: “We have been warning for days, desperation has its limits.”

Italy’s far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini on Saturday reluctantly authorised 27 migrant children rescued at sea to disembark from the charity vessel anchored in limbo off Lampedusa for days.

In a letter, Salvini told Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte he could authorise the “alleged” minors to leave the Open Arms ship despite it being “divergent to my orientation”.

However, the remaining 105 adults and two accompanied children must stay on board in what the charity Proactiva Open Arms said were “untenable” conditions.