ROME: Hundreds of migrants stranded for days on an aid ship in the Mediterranean because Italy and Malta refused to take them in were being transferred to other boats Tuesday ahead of their journey to Spain.
Rescuers warned of deteriorating weather conditions facing the 629 people — including pregnant women and scores of children — who have been crammed on the Aquarius vessel since being plucked from the sea off the Libyan coast at the weekend.
With food and drink running short, their plight could last another three or four more days before they are finally able to land in Spain, according to the French charity SOS Mediterranee which operates the ship.
Spain stepped in to help after Italy — which has been on the front line of the migration crisis in Europe —  and Malta refused to allow the Aquarius to land despite strong pressure from the international community.
Italy’s stance has triggered a war of words with its European allies, with France in particular accusing it of being “irresponsible.”
SOS said over half those on board would be transferred to two official Italian vessels before all three boats make the 1,500 kilometer journey to the Spanish port of Valencia from the Aquarius’s current position between Sicily and Malta.
Doctors from another French charity, MSF (Doctors without Borders), are helping treat the migrants, who include seven pregnant women, 11 young children and 123 unaccompanied minors. Many of them are from Africa.
Spain’s new Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez had offered the boat safe harbor, saying there was a moral “obligation to help to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe.”
Anelize Borges, a Euronews correspondent on the Aquarius, told AFP that weather forecasts were predicting waves as high as two meters (seven feet).
“Even if the conditions are OK, and we go only with 100 people aboard it could take three, three-and-a-half days to get to Spain,” Borges added.
That would mean the migrants will have been at sea for almost a week by the time they arrive in Valencia.
Borges said they had been at sea for 20-30 hours before being rescued, and nerves were fraught.
“Yesterday they told the people on board that there could be a possibility that we would not be going to Italy but that we didn’t know yet where we were going to go and obviously people got terrified,” she said.
“A man threatened to throw himself off the boat, saying he didn’t want to go back to Libya, for some people the prosect of going back was really really scary.”
Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said he would go to Libya — the launchpad for many migrants and refugees fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East — by the end of the month.
“This situation needs to be resolved on the African continent,” said Salvini, whose new populist government has vowed a tougher stance on immigration.
He wants to cut the number of arrivals to Italy — something already achieved by his predecessor thanks to a deal struck with Libyan authorities — while accelerating the expulsion of “illegals.”