WorldROME (Reuters) - Italy plans to transfer migrants crammed aboard a charity boat onto other vessels on Tuesday and then sail them all to Spain, despite appeals from humanitarian groups to let the group disembark immediately. Some 629 migrants, including 11 children and seven pregnant women, have been drifting in the central Mediterranean aboard the Aquarius rescue ship since Sunday, when both Italy and Malta shut their ports to the vessel. MORE MIGRANTS AHEADEven as Italy worked to dispatch the charity ship, an Italian coast guard vessel with 937 migrants aboard was heading north from the Libyan coast and was expected to dock in Sicily on Wednesday. However, charities questioned why the coast guard boat was being allowed to dock in Italy, while migrants on the Aquarius, who had been at sea for longer, were not. NGOs do nothing differently to the coast guard,” the charity Sea Watch wrote on Twitter.

Source: Sunday Times June 12, 2018 08:37 UTC