(AP) More than 400 migrants are living aboard pleasure cruise vessels bobbing in the sea off Malta, many of them for weeks now. But for them, it’s no pleasure, only uncertainty over their fate and they aren’t cruising anywhere.
Rescued from human traffickers’ unseaworthy boats in several operations in the central Mediterranean since late April, the migrants, along with the Maltese government, are waiting for European Union countries to offer to take them in. So far, only France has stepped forward, pledging to accept some of the asylum-seekers.
France is one of a handful of EU countries which agreed last year to share the burden of caring for migrants rescued at sea by Malta and Italy.
