Malta has granted permission to German NGO rescue ship Sea Watch to shelter in its waters with dozens of migrants including young children on board - 10 days after they were rescued in the Mediterranean - according to a report on Wednesday.
The Maltese authorities made the concession to the Sea Watch after a medical team on the ship with the 32 migrants, warned that food and water were running out and many of those on board suffering severe seasickness due to rough seas, the Times of Malta said on its website.
In an unprecedented move, 300 academics from across Europe earlier called for "immediate action" by EU states, urging them to assume shared responsibility for refugees and migrants to end the "untenable, perilous and inhumane" plight of the Sea Watch's passengers.
A senior politician from Italy's centre-left Democratic Party (PD), Matteo Orfini, in letter to premier Giuseppe Conte said it was his constitutional duty to allow the Sea Watch to dock at an Italian port after anti-migrant interior ministry Matteo Salvini on 23 December refused to do so.
Last week, a group of NGOs have made an impassioned plea on behalf of migrants stranded offshore on a rescue vessel, saying the situation was a “travesty of humanity”.
Sea Watch rescued the migrants a week ago from "an unseaworthy rubber boat" in international waters some 27 nautical miles off Sabratah, Libya, according to the Times of Malta.
The migrants, who come from several countries including Nigeria and Sudan, reportedly include three children aged one, six and seven, three unaccompanied minors and women.
No European country has so far offered to take in the stranded migrants.
