ROME (AP) - The Italian coast guard delivered 1,000 liters (1,006 quarts) of drinking water to 140 migrants stranded on a Turkish cargo ship that rescued them in the Mediterranean, as a standoff between Italy and Malta over who should take them entered its fourth day on Sunday.
Italian Coast guard Cmdr. Cosimo Nicastro said the Turkish vessel Pinar also was trying to arrange a helicopter delivery of hot meals but that bad weather was complicating that effort. “The water is very choppy and the wind strong,” Nicastro said in a telephone interview.
Earlier in the day, a coast guard cutter ferried a doctor, nurse and a coast guard official to the Pinar to check on the health of the migrants and 13-member crew as well as the seaworthiness of the 70-meter-long (230-foot) vessel anchored 25 miles (40 kilometers) southwest of the tiny Sicilian island of Lampedusa, Nicastro said.
“There are no worrisome conditions of health or safety,” he said.
Two migrants had been evacuated by helicopter to Lampedusa on Friday because of poor health. The helicopter that authorities hope can bring hot food to the Pinar also will transport three doctors, Nicastro said.
The Pinar plucked the migrants to safety on Thursday when the two boats carrying had trouble at sea, according to Italian authorities.
The Turkish crew also recovered the body of a woman, who appeared to be about 20 years old, in one of the boats, Nicastro said. The body had been wrapped and put in a dinghy attached to the Pinar, he said.
Maltese newspapers on Sunday reported that the dead woman had been pregnant, but Nicastro said he could not confirm that.
Malta is insisting that the Pinar bring the migrants to Lampedusa because it is the nearest port. Italy contends Malta should take them because the ship is in Malta’s search and rescue area.
Lampedusa has a holding center for some of the thousands of clandestine migrants who are rescued near its shores or who slip ashore during the night.
Each year, tens of thousands of migrants pay smugglers to try to reach Italian shores. Often their boats capsize or get stranded, and nearby fishing boats or military ships rescue them.
Fishing boats and military ships in the area originally alerted Italy and Malta to the migrants’ distress at sea.
Maltese army authorities said Malta contends that under international maritime conventions, the nearest port of call is obliged to accept rescued seafarers.
Milan daily Corriere della Sera’s web site reported Sunday that Maltese Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi has called on the European Union to take Malta’s side in the dispute. Malta is one of the EU’s newest members.
Italy’s interior minister, Roberto Maroni, was alleging in an interview with Italian Catholic daily Avvenire that Malta’s conduct was ’incorrect” and deserving censure. In any case, “we won’t let the humanitarian situation, that now is absolutely under control, degenerate,” Maroni said.
Maroni is a leader of the anti-immigrant Northern League party, a key member of Premier Silvio Berlusconio’s conservative government. Italy contends that many of the migrants set out from Libyan shores and has been trying to get Tripoli to crack down on smugglers.
The Pinar, loaded with grain, had been sailing to Tunisia when it rescued the migrants, Nicastro said.
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