Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has said he won’t let 140 rescued migrants off an Italian coastguard ship until Europe agrees to take them, AP reports.
Many of those who were aboard the coastguard vessel on Friday had been aided the previous evening by a fishing boat from Sicily.
No disembarkation port will be assigned until other European countries volunteer to take them, ANSA quoted Salvini as saying.
The minister demands that other EU nations share the costs and logistics of caring for the migrants, who are often rescued at sea from boats launched by Libyan-based human traffickers.