Migrants begin hunger strike on Italian coastguard ship

Many of the 150 migrants stranded on a coastguard ship for a ninth day have launched a hunger strike out of frustration that Italy will not let them disembark in Sicily unless fellow EU nations pledge to take them, authorities said.

“They can do whatever they believe,” interior minister Matteo Salvini tweeted, shrugging off the development aboard the Italian coastguard vessel Diciotti.

The ship’s crew rescued them on August 16 from a foundering human trafficker’s boat in the central Mediterranean, and it has been docked for days in the port of Catania, Sicily.

Opposition lawmaker Davide Faraone said Catania port officials had told him “there’s tension” on the ship and migrants have stopped eating.

Thirteen young children and ailing adults were evacuated from the Diciotti early in the drama. On Wednesday, 27 minors, all teenagers, were allowed to disembark in Catania.

Mr Salvini has been adamant that Italy’s populist government will not allow any of the 150 adults still aboard the vessel to disembark unless other EU nations commit to taking the asylum-seekers.

All but about 18 of those aboard are Eritrean. The others are from Somalia, Syria and Sudan. They have told authorities they suffered months and even years of inhumane treatment in detention in Libya, while waiting to leave aboard smugglers’ boats.

Another opposition legislator who went aboard on Thursday expressed particular concern about 11 women, some as young as 19 or 20.

Appealing to Mr Salvini, Laura Boldrini said: “As a father, they could be your daughter. At least let the young women off.”

Sky TG24 TV said some women aboard ate lunch on Friday but the men refused the meal.

But Mr Salvini was staying tough, as was fellow deputy premier Luigi Di Maio, who heads the senior coalition partner, the eurosceptic 5-Star Movement.

Mr Di Maio threatened that Italy could withhold some of its yearly 20 billion euro (£18 billion) contribution to the bloc if EU nations did not make good on promises earlier this year for more solidarity towards the Italians, who have seen more than 600,000 rescued migrants brought to Italian shores in recent years.

If the European Commission meeting does not “decide anything about the Diciotti ship and the re-distribution of the migrants, I and all the 5-Star Movement are no longer willing to give 20 billion to the European Union”, Mr Di Maio said.

In Brussels, EU Commission spokesman Alexander Winterstein said: “The European Union is a community of rules and it operates on the basis of rules, not threats.”

He urged “all parties involved to work constructively together to find a swift solution”.