Migrant boat 12 miles from Tunisia 'DENIED access' - Tunis insists ship should go to ITALY
TUNISIAN officials have refused to accept a boat carrying around 40 African migrants and insisted responsibility for the vessel lies with Italy or Malta, a humanitarian organisation has claimed.
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The Tunisian-registered boat has been stranded off the country’s coast for nearly two weeks week without aid, the Red Crescent said.
Despite being just 12 miles from land, Red Crescent says the North African nation has refused to act.
Monji Slim, an official of the Tunisian Red Crescent, said authorities have argued the decision should be up to Malta or Italy to accept the boat.
He said: "The African migrants at sea are in a bad condition after the vessel's captain refused to receive aid to pressure the Tunisian authorities to receive them, but no solution has been reached after 11 days at sea."
The situation comes as the European Union struggles to reach a bloc-wide policy to deal with the ongoing migrant crisis.
Leaders from Italy and Greece have demanded more be done to share the burden of new arrivals, but there are deep divisions between member states over the plan.
Countries including Poland and Hungary have already refused to take part in such a scheme and argued they should not be forced to take in asylum seekers and refugees.
Meanwhile, Italy’s new government has implemented a tough new policy and closed its ports to charity ships operating in the Mediterranean.
Interior Minister Matteo Salvini launched a crackdown against migrants entering the country shortly after taking office in June.
Earlier this month, he refused to accept a rescue boat carrying 630 people after Malta turned it away.
Mr Salvini has argued EU members must take in some of migrants who are rescued from the Mediterranean every month.
But a plan agreed by European leaders last month has already been dealt a major blow.
The European Council had agreed to set up asylum processing centres in North Africa in an attempt to reduce the number of people who make the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean.
But in a setback last week, Libya became the latest country to announce it would not be participating.
Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj said: "We are strictly against Europe officially placing illegal migrants who are no longer wanted in the EU in our country.
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"We also won't agree on any deals with EU money about taking in more illegal migrants.”
Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia have already refused to host the EU’s proposed “disembarkation platforms”.
At least 80 migrants died when their boat sank off the Tunisian coast last month, one of the worst migrant boat accidents in the North African country of recent years.