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UN refugee agency demands end to Mediterranean impasses

UN refugee agency demands end to Mediterranean impasses | iNFOnews.ca
FILE - In this Aug.1, 2018 file photo, the French NGO "SOS Mediterranee" Aquarius ship leaves the Marseille harbor, southern France. he European Commission said Monday Aug.13, 2018 that it is in contact with a number of member states to identify a country willing to take 141 migrants picked up by a rescue ship, after the French aid groups operating the ship appealed for a safe port and Italy said Britain should take responsibility. (AP Photo/Claude Paris, File)

BERLIN – The U.N. refugee agency is urging European countries to end a string of impasses over ships carrying rescued migrants and put together a Mediterranean regional arrangement that makes clear where such vessels can dock.

The Geneva-based agency welcomed Malta’s decision Tuesday to allow the private Aquarius ship to dock, with the 141 migrants on board to be distributed among five fellow European Union nations.

But U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in a statement Wednesday that “the situation should never have come to this in the first place.”

He added that “it is wrong, dangerous and immoral to keep rescue ships wandering the Mediterranean while governments compete on who can take the least responsibility.”

Italy’s new government is refusing to allow any private rescue ships to dock.

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Abbey Westbury

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