Malta today reiterated its refusal to open its ports to an NGO migrant rescue ship in the Mediterranean with hundreds of people on board, ignoring calls from Italy's hardline interior minister to not "look the other way".
Some 629 migrants were saved by SOS Mediterranee yesterday and are stuck aboard the French NGO's ship Aquarius, which is currently between Malta and Sicily waiting for a secure port at which to dock.
Matteo Salvini, in a joint statement with Danilo Toninelli, minister in charge of the Italian coastguard, insisted that Malta "cannot continue to look the other way when it comes to respecting precise international conventions on the protection of human life."
"The people we saved yesterday were in a difficult condition, at least 50 were at risk of drowning. We need to have an idea of what port to go to, something that up to now we haven't had."
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