The Alan Kurdi, a search-and-rescue ship run by the Sea-Eye NGO, was close to Italian island of Lampedusa and heading north on Thursday after picking up 40 migrants off Libya on Wednesday, sources said.
On Wednesday Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, Transport
Minister Danilo Toninelli and Defence Minister Elisabetta Trenta
signed an order banning the ship from entering Italian waters.
Salvini has spearheaded the government tough stance of
refusing access to Italy's ports to NGO-run ships that rescue
migrants in the Mediterranean.
This has led to a series of standoffs with vessels that have
sought to defy this policy.
"There is a squalid, disgusting new development," Salvini
said on Thursday.
"The umpteenth provocation is taking place in the
Mediterranean".
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