Italy's far-right interior minister Matteo Salvini on Friday appealed to Malta to open its ports to Germany charity ship Lifeline which has more than 200 rescued migrants on board.
"It''s an illegal ship with an illegal flag," Salvini said at a political rally in the central Italian city of Siena.
"We would like to know who is financing this ship which is carrying a human cargo and is located in Maltese waters," Salvini stated.
"To ensure the safety of those on board, we ask Malta to open one of its ports, allow these desperate people to disembark, seize the ship and detain its crew so it cannot ever ply the waters of the Mediterranean again."
Salvini's comments appeared to contradict a statement on Thursday by infrastructure minister Danilo Toninelli that Italy would transfer the rescued migrants from the Lifeline to Italian boats and would "seize the ship".
The populist Italian government accuses the German charity Mission Lifeline which operates the ship of acting illegally by saving the migrants off Libya on Thursday instead of allowing Libyan coastguard to carry out the rescue.
The government also alleges that Lifeline and another ship operated by the NGO are "illegally" flying the Dutch flag after the Dutch representation to the European Union said on Thursday that the ships did not appear in the Dutch naval registers - a claim denied by Mission Lifeline.
Matteo Salvini has repeatedly accused NGOs of being complicit with human smugglers operating in Libya and after Lifeline's rescue of the migrants on Thursday vowed on Facebook that "foreign NGO boats will never touch Italian soil again."
Earlier this month Salvini refused to open Italy's ports to the NGO Sos Mediterranee's ship Aquarius with some 630 rescued migrants on board, leaving it stranded in the Mediterranean after Malta declined to help. Amid a diplomatic standoff sparked by Italy's hardline stance, the boat was eventually taken to the port of Valencia in Spain.
