After days at sea, some migrants reach Italy, others wait

A German charity boat carrying 257 rescued migrants has docked in Sicily after Italian authorities granted permission

ROME -- A German charity boat carrying 257 rescued migrants docked Saturday in Sicily after Italian authorities granted permission, but another humanitarian vessel with 549 aboard still awaited an assigned port six days after the start of rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea. After several days in limbo at sea, Sea-Watch 3 sailed into port at Trapani, western Sicily. Among the migrants aboard were 70 minors, some of them traveling without adult guardians while trying to reach Europe. Health workers were administering COVID-19 tests to the migrants. German maritime rescue group Sea-Watch said Italian authorities assigned the German-flagged vessel a port on Friday after sea conditions in the central Mediterranean deteriorated. Italy appealed to the European Union earlier in the week to press fellow EU nations to take some of the thousands of asylum-seekers who have arrived in the country in recent months, a sharp uptick since 2020. But similar past appeals for EU solidarity largely went unheeded, and there was no immediate signal the Italian government’s latest pitch would prove more effective.