The U.N. migration and refugee agencies on Friday urged Italy’s government to let 43 migrants from Libya disembark from a boat that had rescued them in the Mediterranean Sea.
Rome hasn’t let the migrants off the Sea Watch 3 onto the Italian island of Lampedusa since the June 12 rescue.
International Organization for Migration spokesman Joel Millman said Libya’s capital had “offered its port to the Sea Watch. The Italian government said they should go to Tripoli.”
UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch said “the country in which territory this boat is, they have the obligation to let these people disembark,” adding “no one should be returned back” to war-torn Libya.
“These desperate people need to disembark,” Baloch said. “This is an obligation under international law.”
