Doctors Without Borders confirmed Tuesday that the migrants remaining on board the ship ‘Geo Barents’, docked in the Italian port of Catania, will disembark tonight, as transmitted by the coordinator of the NGO delegation, Juan Matias Gil.
Subsequently, in a message on his official Twitter profile, the Italian MP Antonio Nicita, of the Democratic Party has assured that, «after seven hours», referring to a sanitary inspection on board, all migrants will get off the ship, which is for MSF a «relief».
«There are 215 people, including the two Syrian men who jumped off the boat yesterday afternoon, who started shouting and crying for joy,» Gil has indicated, adding that the health of the migrants is «fragile», as reported by the newspaper ‘La Stampa’.
Meanwhile, the boat of the NGO Humanity 1, where at least 30 people have started a hunger strike over their situation, has filed an appeal with the Civil Court of Catania to ask for the immediate disembarkation of the 35 migrants still on board.
The Italian Interior Ministry has not granted the disembarkation to the migrants of the latter NGO, whose boat has been blocked in the port for at least two days, on the grounds that their health is not fragile enough, as reported by the newspaper ‘La Reppublica’.
For its part, the ship ‘Ocean Viking’, managed by the NGO SOS Mediterranée, has set sail for France after waiting in vain for an authorization from the Italian authorities to disembark the 234 migrants and refugees it is carrying, since «the situation on board has reached a critical point».
