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© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Migrants disembark on the port of Pozzallo after spending practically two weeks on board the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)-operated Ocean Viking, on the island of Sicily, Italy, October 30, 2019. REUTERS/Antonio Parrinello/File Photograph
PARIS (Reuters) – Greater than half of the 44 minors that have been on board the controversial Ocean Viking refugee rescue ship have fled the French social providers who have been taking good care of them, authorities mentioned on Thursday.
Six days in the past France let the charity-run ship carrying greater than 200 migrants rescued within the Mediterranean dock on the port of Toulon, within the southern Var area, after Italy refused to take them in.
The transfer sparked a dispute between the 2 nations and condemnation by far-right French events, which blamed the federal government for being tender on immigration.
On Thursday, the Var prefecture mentioned that 26 of the 44 minors on the ship had fled the Toulon resort the place that they had been housed.
It mentioned in an announcement that the kids who left have been primarily Eritreans who most popular to affix family members in different European nations together with the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Germany.
The youngsters weren’t locked up and have been free to go the place they needed. The adults who have been aboard the ship, operated by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), are held in a social centre and should not allowed to go away.
The prefecture mentioned that social providers would proceed to offer non permanent shelter, medical care and education for the remaining Ocean Viking minors in its care.
Final week, the Var area prefect mentioned the migrants could be despatched to a holding web site the place they’d be given medical care and their asylum requests processed. These not deemed eligible to remain could be returned to their dwelling nations.
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