Montenegro Mulls Italian Plea to Host Stranded Migrants

Montenegro confirmed on Wednesday that it has been approached by Italy and asked to take in a number of migrants and refugees, to help end a 10-day standoff with a ship docked off the Italian coast at Catania.

The government in Podgorica said it was still mulling whether to take the mostly African-origin migrants and refugees, but has not yet taken a stance.

"Italy contacted the Foreign Ministry and told them about the possible acceptance of migrants from the ship 'Dicotti'. The Montenegrin authorities still haven't decided what to do regarding that matter," the government's spokesperson, Srdjan Kusovac, told a local website CDM.

Italy has asked Montenegro and other countries to receive some of the migrants who disembarked at a port in Sicily after the Italian authorities kept them on the ship for days.

The vessel arrived on August 19 with 177 migrants on board, but the Italian Interior Ministry denied them the right to disembark, calling on EU member states to help to distribute them first.

Reportedly, 27 unaccompanied minors were let off the ship on 22 August, assisted by the Red Cross, UNHCR and Save the Children.

Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who leads the anti-migrant League party, refused to let the migrants off the "Diciotti" until other EU nations had agreed to take in some of the asylum-seekers, most of them young men from Eritrea.

The Italian authorities say about 650,000 people have reached Italy from North Africa since 2014, and the country's new populist government has vowed to stop the surge.  

Last week, Italy threatened to withhold next year's EU budget contributions if other member countries and partners did not agree to take in more rescued migrants and refugees.
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