French Interior Minister Gérald
Darmanin said Thursday that Paris has suspended plans to take in
3,500 refugees currently in Italy and called on "all the
participants" in the EU's migrant relocation mechanism to adopt
similar measures after Rome refused to assign a port of safety
to the Ocean Viking.
Darmanin called on "Germany in particular" to suspend the
relocation of asylum seekers from Italy.
Darmanin said that Italy's decision not to assign a port of
safety to the Ocean Viking was "incomprehensible" and announced
that Paris would allow the NGO-run search-and-rescue (SAR) ship
to dock in Toulon on Friday.
He added that a third of the 234 asylum seekers on board the
ship would be "relocated" in France.
The Ocean Viking, which is run by French NGO SOS Méditerranée,
headed to France after Italy ignored its appeals to be assigned
a port of safety for three weeks.
"It is clear that there will be extremely serious consequences
for our bilateral relations," said Darmanin
Premier Giorgia Meloni's new government has adopted a tough
stance on NGO-run SAR ships, telling them to stay out of Italian
waters.
In the case of two other ships, the Humanity 1 and the Geo
Barents, the government initially only allowed people considered
vulnerable to disembark after they docked in the port of Catania
at the weekend.
On Tuesday Italian health authorities ordered that the remaining
250-odd people also be let off the ships, a decision Meloni
blasted as "bizarre".
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