Dozens of migrants who were saved in the Mediterranean by German NGO SeaWatch must be brought ashore in the war-torn Libyan capital Tripoli as the "illegal" rescue occurred in international waters, Italy's hardline interior minister Matteo Salvini tweeted on Thursday.
''The illegal ship, after taking on board 52 migrants in Libyan waters, is now 38 miles from the Libyan coast, 125 miles from Lampedusa, 72 miles from Tunisia and 170 miles from Malta," he wrote in a tweet.
Libya's authorities have designated Tripoli as the closest port for the rescued migrants to disembark, Salvini said in a further tweet.
"If (SeaWatch3) disobeys, endangering the lives of the migrants, it will be held fully responsible," the tweet warned.
Salvini's account of where Wednesday's rescue occurred is at odds with that of SeaWatch, which said it took place some 47 miles off the northwest Libyan port city of Zawiya.
Although Libyan coastguard had claimed it was coordinating an operation to save the 52 people from an inflatable dinghy in distress, when SeaWatch reached the boat, no Libyan rescue vessels had arrived.
According to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a country's territorial waters extend at most 12 nautical miles from the shore.
.jpg)
