- Title: Open Arms migrant rescue ship remains stranded at sea
- Date: 17th August 2019
- Summary: LAMPEDUSA, ITALY (AUGUST 17, 2019) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF CHARITY RESCUE SHIP "OPEN ARMS" ANCHORED OFF COAST TOURIST LOOKING AT OPEN ARMS SHIP
- Embargoed: 31st August 2019 09:44
- Keywords: Spanish rescue ship Open Arms Mediterranean migrants Libya Italian government
- Location: LAMPEDUSA, ITALY
- City: LAMPEDUSA, ITALY
- Country: Italy
- Topics: Asylum/Immigration/Refugees,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA001ASLUNNR
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: A charity rescue ship carrying 134 migrants, mostly Africans, was stranded off the coast of Italy on Saturday (August 17) as a political battle in Rome continues to stop it from docking.
The migrants, picked up off Libya over the last two weeks, are waiting to disembark on the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, but far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has ordered his officials not to let them do so.
Salvini, who has built his popularity on a vigourous campaign against illegal immigration, is acting in defiance of his own prime minister and despite six European Union nations agreeing to take the migrants in.
Their plight underlines the breakdown of Italy's ruling coalition and how immigration has become central to Salvini's plan to take his right-wing League party out of government, drag the nation to elections and return to power as prime minister.
France, Germany, Romania, Portugal, Spain and Luxembourg have said they will help relocate the migrants, but the reaction from Salvini's interior ministry was sceptical.
(Production: Oriana Boselli, Guglielmo Mangiapane) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2019. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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