Italy is asking the EU to find countries willing to take 177 migrants who have been aboard an Italian coast guard ship for days following another standoff with Malta.
The Italian Foreign Ministry said in a statement Sunday that it had written a letter to the EU Commission asking it to work out a solution, as it has done on several other occasions in the past two months.
The letter follows threats by Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini to send the migrants back to Libya — which the EU has said is not a safe harbour.
The ship is off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa. Italy’s populist government has refused to accept migrants rescued at sea, while Malta says the migrants were not in distress.