Corsica has offered to welcome the humanitarian boat “Ocean Viking” with its 234 migrants stuck on board for twenty days now. For the time being, the French State has not given the green light and is still placing the responsibility on Italy.
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L’ocean viking entered French waters Thursday, November 10 after 7 a.m., according to the geolocation site vesselfinder.com. At 10.24 a.m., he was off Aleria (Haute-Corse).
>> “Ocean Viking”: why migrant rescue boats in the Mediterranean never dock in France
The humanitarian ship has been stuck at sea for 20 days with 234 migrants on board. The NGO SOS Méditerranée has made around forty requests to various European states to be able to dock and disembark the survivors in a safe place. By the voice of president of the Corsican executive Gilles Simeoni, la Corsica offered to host the humanitarian ship just like Marseille. Mayor Benoît Payan told France Bleu Provence on Wednesday that the city was in “ability” to welcome the castaways. But for now, SOS Méditerranée has not received any response from the French authorities, says Sophie Beau.
The tension has even risen a notch between France and Italy Paris denouncing the refusal “unacceptable” of Rome to let it dock and Brussels calling for the immediate disembarkation of all migrants. “The European rule is that the boat must land in the nearest port, which is an Italian port, so the Italians must respect the European rule”hammered Thursday on France 2 the Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire, echoing the words of government spokesman Olivier Véran the day before on franceinfo. “If we start to deviate from this rule, there is no longer any possible solidarity, there is no longer any effective management of migratory flows.estimated Bruno Le Maire. “This does not exclude showing humanity […] but if we have defined rules, it is so that they are applied”.
>> ocean viking : three questions on maritime law and the reception of migrants in the Mediterranean
Of the more than 1,000 migrants picked up at sea by four ambulance boats, after fleeing from Libya on makeshift boats, only those rescued by the Ocean Viking of the NGO SOS Méditerranée were still stranded off Italy on Wednesday. .