17 June 2018•Update: 17 June 2018
MADRID
Three rescue ships carrying hundreds of migrants arrived in the Spanish city of Valencia on Sunday.
The first 274 migrants at the Italian coast guard ship Dattilo arrived at the Spanish port early morning.
Later, the rescue ship, Aquarius, with 106 migrants and a third ship carrying 250 migrants arrived at the port.
Around 123 children and seven pregnant women were among the 630 undocumented migrants.
The migrants were welcomed by health officials, Red Cross volunteers, psychologists and interpreters.
Aquarius was originally set to dock in Italy, but the newly-formed Italian government had turned the ship away.
Following Italy’s decision, Malta said it too would not accept the ship either so it remained in limbo between the two countries for days.
Pedro Sanchez, Spain’s new prime minister, on Monday offered to provide safe harbor.
"Most people are inside lying on floor, including pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, babies, burns patients, people who almost drowned," Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Coordinator Aloys Vimard, who was on board the boat, said on Twitter.
According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in the first five months of 2018, a total of 35,455 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean Sea into Europe, with more than 11,792 landing in Spain.
The UNHCR estimates that 792 have died or gone missing, and its data shows that 21.9 percent of total arrivals are Syrian.
Reporting by Hasan Esen:Writing by Meryem Goktas
