Rescued migrants head for Spain after Italy closes ports

Spain on Saturday authorised a ship carrying hundreds of migrants rescued off Libya to sail to its waters after Italy and Malta refused to receive them.

The Spanish coastguard "due to the refusal or lack of response from the nearest ports, has authorised (the ship's) movement to Spanish territorial waters," a government statement said, with the migrants expected to spend Christmas at sea.

Libya, France and Tunisia did not respond to a request from Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms to disembark the 311 men, women, children and babies, Spain said, after Italy's hard-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said the migrants were not welcome.

"My answer is clear: Italian ports are closed!" Salvini tweeted. "For the traffickers of human beings and for those who help them, the fun is over."
The NGO posted a video of some of those rescued "from a certain death at sea. If you could feel the cold in the images, it would be easier to understand the emergency. No port to disembark and Malta's refusal to give us food. This isn't Christmas."
Open Arms' founder Oscar Camps tweeted back at Salvini that "your rhetoric and your message will, like everything in this life, end. But you should know that in a few decades your descendants will be ashamed of what you do and say."