Source: NY Times
By Megan Specia
For the second time this month, the authorities in Italy and Malta are refusing to allow a rescue ship with hundreds of migrants aboard to dock in their ports.
The rescue vessel, the MV Lifeline, run by the German charity Mission Lifeline, has been unable to offload 234 people sheltering onboard since they were rescued from two rubber dinghies in the Mediterranean on Thursday.
A cargo vessel, the Alexander Maersk, was also waiting on Sunday for clearance to dock in an Italian port with 110 rescued migrants onboard. While on a merchant mission on Thursday, the ship came to the assistance of a boat in distress 5 miles off the coast of Pozzallo, Italy.
“They have the right to live,” Axel Steier, a Mission Lifeline founder, said of the migrants. “And they have a right to seek asylum, and that isn’t being guaranteed at the moment. It’s kind of like you are jailed on the ocean.”
Read more at: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/24/world/europe/migrant-ship-mediterranean.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes