{"id":142237,"date":"2018-06-17T02:45:54","date_gmt":"2018-06-17T02:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/spain-prepares-to-welcome-disputed-aquarius-migrants\/"},"modified":"2018-06-17T02:45:54","modified_gmt":"2018-06-17T02:45:54","slug":"spain-prepares-to-welcome-disputed-aquarius-migrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/spain-prepares-to-welcome-disputed-aquarius-migrants\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain prepares to welcome disputed Aquarius migrants"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/images\/ic\/720x405\/p06b5862.jpg\"\/>Media playback is unsupported on your device<figcaption>Media captionOn board the Aquarius, people rest in cramped conditions<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">Spain will welcome hundreds of migrants to Valencia on Sunday after they were rescued from the Mediterranean Sea and turned away by Italy and Malta.<\/p>\n<p>Three vessels will arrive carrying 630 migrants who were rescued near Libya last weekend by the Aquarius ship.<\/p>\n<p>A huge welcome banner will greet the migrants, while health officials and translators will offer support.<\/p>\n<p>Spain&#039;s new socialist government has promised free healthcare and says it will investigate each asylum case.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It is our duty to help avoid a humanitarian catastrophe and offer a safe port to these people, to comply with our human rights obligations,&quot; Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez said earlier this week.<\/p>\n<p>He has adopted a migrant-friendly stance since taking up his post two weeks ago.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Is Italy taking in thousands of migrants?<\/li>\n<li>Who is responsible for helping migrants at sea?<\/li>\n<li>Migrant crisis: Just a mess or cynical politics?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>On Valencia&#039;s quayside, 1,000 Red Cross workers will help take the migrants in. There will also be police officers drafted in specifically to handle their arrival.<\/p>\n<p>Officials say the rescued migrants include 123 unaccompanied minors, 11 younger children under the age of 13 and seven pregnant women.<\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  Reuters<figcaption>Image caption                                      The migrants will be greeted by hundreds of volunteers, including translators and health officials                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Aquarius sparked a major diplomatic row when it was left stranded on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Italy&#039;s populist coalition - and in particular its interior minister, the right-wing League party leader Matteo Salvini - has taken a hard-line approach to immigration and refused to let it dock.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Salvini says it is unfair that countries on the frontline of the EU have had to carry most of the burden of handling the migrant influx. <\/p>\n<p>He said Malta should accept the Aquarius, but it refused, arguing that it fell under Italian jurisdiction.<\/p>\n<p>Valencia&#039;s Mayor Joan Ribo, who has offered the ship a safe berth, described Italy&#039;s decision to turn the vessel away as inhuman.<\/p>\n<p>He told the BBC that he hoped the city&#039;s actions would act as an &quot;electric shock&quot; and lead to reform of Europe&#039;s migration policies.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron accused Italy of &quot;irresponsibility&quot; for turning the Aquarius away. His government will work with Spain to deal with the migrants. <\/p>\n<p>Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo said that any migrants who wish to go to France would be allowed to do, providing they had a legitimate claim to asylum.<\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  EPA<figcaption>Image caption                                      The migrants rescued by the Aquarius have spent a week in rough seas, many suffering seasickness, while their fate was decided                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The migrants aboard the Aquarius spent 20 hours in overcrowded rubber dinghies before being rescued. They have since spent a week aboard the rescue ship in rough seas - with many suffering seasickness.<\/p>\n<p>Migration reform is likely to be a key topic at a meeting of EU leaders later this month, as many countries continue to grapple with the political fallout caused by an influx of migrants in recent years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Media playback is unsupported on your deviceMedia captionOn board the Aquarius, people rest in cramped conditions Spain will welcome hundreds of migrants to Valencia on Sunday after they were rescued<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":142238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}