Italy put a Spanish NGO’s migrant rescue ship under administrative detention for 20 days, media reports said Thursday.
The Open Arms migrant rescue ship’s Spanish NGO operator was also fined several thousand euros for allegedly violating new rules governing search and rescue operations by civilian vessels in the central Mediterranean Sea, said state-run ANSA news agency.
The move came after the ship disembarked 176 irregular migrants it rescued Wednesday to the Italian shore, it added.
The NGO is accused of carrying out multiple rescues in breach of rules introduced by the government requiring civilian ships to head directly to the assigned port after the first rescue.
It is the second time that Open Arms has been placed under administrative detention.
The first was after a disembarkation on Aug. 22.
A total of 127,207 migrants have reached Italy since the beginning of the year, as of Sept. 15. The number is almost double during the same period last year. The peak in migrants’ arrivals was reached in 2016, with 180,000 recorded entries.