Rescued migrants transferred to quarantine ship off Italy

A rescuer from the Open Arms humanitarianh group helps a migrant boarding a dinghy in the Mediterranean Sea. Reuters

More than 200 migrants rescued by a Spanish human rights group have been transferred to a boat for quarantine.

Open Arms, a Spanish NGO, transferred the migrants to a ferry, off the Sicilian port of Trapani, where they will be watched for coronavirus symptoms.

The 253 migrants, including women and children, were rescued by Open Arms after their dinghy began to sink off the coast of Libya on Wednesday. At least six people lost their lives in the shipwreck, including a 6-month-old child.

Italy is the primary route for migrants departing mostly from Tunisia and Libya to reach Europe. Spain’s Canary Islands is another popular destination for migrants leaving northern Africa.

About 30,800 people have arrived in Italy so far in 2020, with numbers picking up again after years of decline, after an Italian-led effort to disrupt smuggling networks.

Last weekend, Spain saw more than 1,600 migrants make the dangerous journey from northern Africa to the Canary Islands in small boats. At least one person died en route.

Emergency services said the arrival numbers over last weekend were the highest they had seen in a decade.

One body was pulled from the water off the coast of El Hierro island, while a second was flown to hospital with an unspecified health problem.

More than 1,000 arrived last Saturday on the islands of Gran Canaria, Tenerife and El Hierro, after making the journey on about 20 barely seaworthy boats, a spokeswoman for the Canary services said. More than 600 migrants arrived last Sunday.

Spain is sending two senior ministers to Senegal and Morocco to try to stop reduce the number of migrants heading to the Canary Islands, which are overwhelmed by new arrivals.

Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya will head to Senegal on Sunday, while Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska will travel to Morocco on November 20.

The government "wants to encourage the diplomatic path" to ensure "nobody risks their life getting aboard one of these boats," the islands' regional policy chief, Carolina Darias, said.

The two ministers have also visited other popular departure points for migrants, including Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania and landlocked Chad.

At the same time, Ms Darias warned, Madrid would also tighten security around the Canary Islands, which lie around 100 kilometres off Morocco's western coast.