Diciotti ship to dock at Catania, migrants off if EU answers

(ANSA) - Rome, August 20 - The Coast Guard's Diciotti ship carrying 177 rescued migrants will dock at Catania, Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli said Monday.
    But Interior Minister Matteo Salvini won't let any migrants off until the EU tells him they will go elsewhere, interior ministry sources said. "The gallant men of the coast guard," Toninelli tweeted, "performed their duty saving human lives just 17 miles from Lampedusa".
    He added: "Now Europe must swiftly play its part." Salvini won't let the ship dock at Catania, however, until he gets assurances from the EU that the migrants will go elsewhere, interior ministry sources said Monday. The sources stressed that answers from Europe were expected.
    Until they are provided, they said, no one will be allowed to get off the ship.
    Earlier Salvini said the ship would be allowed to land in Italy if the European Union does its bit to redistribute the migrants.
    Meanwhile the Italian foreign ministry "officially and formally" requested the intervention of the EU.
    The Diciotti picked up the migrants last week after they were spotted in Maltese waters and Salvini has stressed they must be spread across the EU if the ship is to land in Italy.
    Otherwise, he has said, they will be sent back to Libya.
    Salvini said on Italian TV: "the ship may land in Italy, as long as the 177 migrants are distributed, in a spirit of solidarity by the EU, which is made up of 27 countries".
    "Let them pay us this courtesy to play their part, given that we have taken in more than 700,000 people who came by sea".
    He reiterated the intention of sending the 177 back to Libya unless the EU does its bit.