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Germany tells Italy it will take 50 migrants from Frontex ships

AFP
AFP - [email protected]
Germany tells Italy it will take 50 migrants from Frontex ships
Photo: DPA

Germany said Sunday it had agreed with Italy to take in 50 of the 450 migrants aboard two EU border agency vessels, matching similar pledges by France and Malta.

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Italy has since Saturday requested that its EU peers take some of the migrants stranded aboard the Frontex ships off the Italian coast.

A German government spokeswoman said in a statement that "Germany and Italy have agreed that, in view of the ongoing talks on intensified bilateral cooperation on asylum policy, Germany is ready to take in 50 people".

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte confirmed the deal on Sunday, writing on Facebook that 150 of the 450 migrants had now been accepted and the rest would soon be fairly distributed among other EU countries.

"This is the solidarity and responsibility we have always asked from Europe and now, after the results obtained at the last European Council, it is starting to become reality," Conte said.

"Let's continue on this path with firmness and respect for human rights."

Conte had been in contact with his 27 EU peers, reminding them that they had agreed at their end-of-June summit on the need to share the migration burden.

Italy's new populist government, which came to power on June 1st, wants to block any further migrant arrivals by boat and has banned NGO rescue ships from docking in Italian ports, accusing them of aiding human traffickers.

The latest migrants, like thousands of others, had set sail from Libya in a single wooden vessel which was identified early Friday.

On Saturday morning, as the two Frontex vessels approached the boat, several migrants threw themselves overboard, prompting immediate efforts to rescue them, Italian sources said.

Eight women and children were taken to the Italian island of Lampedusa for medical treatment.

Spain's new foreign minister Josep Borrell meanwhile Sunday said that the EU's prized Schengen free-movement system was "beginning to disappear" under pressure from migrants arriving in the bloc.

"Through the back door, France, Italy and Germany have placed controls on the borders because of the migration crisis," Borrell told the El Pais newspaper.

Spanish rescuers separately saved more than 340 migrants from the Mediterranean on Saturday.

READ ALSO: Spain saves over 340 migrants at sea, one on truck tyre

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