“Portugal, Spain and France are working together, and as we did in many previous cases, we made ourselves available to receive them and Malta authorised the ship to dock. This will be a similar operation as the one carried out a month ago with the Lifeline,” said Minister Eduardo Cabrita.

The three coountries came to a joint decision and informed the European Commission, but other countries are also considering providing assistance to these migrants.

“We believe there should be a stable position across Europe involving everybody. We cannot bounce from ad hoc solution to ad hoc solution whenever a ship is adrift on the Mediterranean," the Minister added, calling for an integrated solution to respond to the challenge of migratory flows.

The majority (73) of the 141 immigrants on the “Aquarius” are minors and 70% are from Somalia and Eritreia, but the ship also has people on board from Bangladesh, Camaroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, NIgeria, MOrocco and Egypt.