SAFE HARBOR

Spain Will Accept Stranded Migrant Rescue Boat That Italy, Malta Refused

More than 600 on board, including 123 unaccompanied minors and pregnant women.

A rescue boat with more than 600 migrants on board will be permitted to dock at the Spanish port of Valencia after the newly installed Italian government announced Sunday that it will close all of Italy’s ports to migrants attempting to enter from Libya. Malta has also refused to take in the craft, which The Guardian reports has 629 people on board, with “123 unaccompanied minors, 11 other children and seven pregnant women.” “Malta takes in nobody... From today, Italy will also start to say no to human trafficking, no to the business of illegal immigration,” wrote Italy’s far-right new interior minister, Matteo Salvini, on Facebook. “We will shut the ports.” The migrants on the boat were gathered through six rescue operations in international waters, including ones who were rescued in open water by the Italian navy.