An aid ship stuck at sea for six days will be allowed to dock in Malta, and more than 200 migrants on board will be distributed among eight European Union states.

The announcement by Malta’s prime minister Joseph Muscat ends Europe’s second impasse in recent weeks over the fate of people saved at sea amid rising political resistance to their welcome.

Mr Muscat said that once in port, the Lifeline Mission ship would be impounded and the crew placed under investigation for allegedly operating illegally – including violating rescue protocols and operating without the correct registration.

The migrants, who were rescued off Libya’s coast, would be vetted to determine if they are eligible for political asylum or if they are economic migrants to be sent back to their countries of origin.

Mr Muscat said Malta has no legal obligation to act since the rescue happened in Libyan waters, but said it was willing to act “before the situation escalates to a humanitarian crisis”.

The eight countries to accept vetted migrants from the ship are France, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Malta itself. It is unclear how many each would take. </s> A rescue boat stranded for nearly a week in the Mediterranean with over 200 migrants docked in Malta Wednesday, after a deal was struck between a group of EU states to take them in.

Lifeline, a vessel for the German charity Mission Lifeline, has been waiting to be allocated a port for six days after rescuing 234 migrants off the coast of Libya last Thursday.

The migrants on board will be distributed among eight EU nations who have agreed to take them in, Maltese Prime minister Joseph Muscat said Wednesday.

So far Malta, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Ireland, Belgium and France have agreed to welcome some of the migrants.

Muscat said that after the migrants had disembarked, the Lifeline ship would be impounded in order to carry out an investigation into its legal status and actions on the night of the rescue.

However, Muscat warned that the situation was "unique" and could not be considered a blueprint for handling future rescues.

Mission Lifeline has come under fire from EU leaders who accuse it of contravening international law by rescuing the migrants when the Libyan coastguard was already intervening.

Belgium and Luxembourg said they would each take 15 of the Lifeline migrants. The Netherlands will take 20.

Theo Francken, Belgian minster for asylum and migration, tweeted that Belgium would help Malta but that it must be one-off operation.

Many passengers were suffering from seasickness and three were in the ship's hospital facility, according to Lifeline. One passenger has been evacuated, leaving 233 currently on board.

The eight EU nations agreed to take in a share of those on board after days of bickering over the migrants' fate.

The NGO's co-founder Axel Steier blamed Germany's failure to participate in the deal on the country's hardline Interior Minister Horst Seehofer.

Seehofer has taken a strong stance on immigration and given German Chancellor Angela Merkel an ultimatum to curb arrivals to Germany.

Mission Lifeline has hit back at criticism levelled at it by EU leaders.

On Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron said the charity had contravened "all the rules" by rescuing the migrants when the Libya coastguard was already intervening.

Macron accused Mission Lifeline of "playing into the hands of smugglers".

But the charity denied breaking the law in a statement on Wednesday.

"There have been a number of false accusations that Lifeline ignores orders by different MRCCs (maritime rescue coordination centres)," said Steier.

Lifeline argued the migrants would not be safe in Libya, where they have faced abuse and rape in holding centres, and that returning them there would breach international refugee law.

"The only order the ship denied was to hand over people to the so-called Libyan coastguard, as this would have been not in line with the Geneva Refugee Convention and therefore criminal."

The vessel's fate had been hanging in the balance since last week as bloc members remained at loggerheads over how to handle the influx of people trying to reach the continent.

Malta and Italy initially refused to take in the migrants, but on Tuesday Valletta agreed to let the ship dock when other EU states confirmed they would help.

Italy's far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini had hailed the news that a second migrant ship he had turned away was being taken in elsewhere.

Earlier this month, Rome rejected the Aquarius ship carrying 630 migrants, forcing it to eventually dock in Spain.

"For women and children really fleeing the war the doors are open, for everyone else they are not!" Salvini tweeted.

The decision by Italy's new hardline government to turn away rescue vessels has plunged Europe into a political crisis over how to collectively handle the huge numbers of people migrating from Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

Italy and Malta say they are unfairly bearing the brunt of the new arrivals, while other European countries are urging more forceful policies to block their entry.

Sixteen EU leaders held emergency talks in Brussels on Sunday in a bid to break the longstanding deadlock over who should take in the migrants.

A full EU summit is scheduled for Thursday and Friday. </s> A German NGO rescue vessel that has spent six days stuck at sea after no nearby European country would give it permission to dock has been granted permission to disembark in Malta after a group of European Union member states agreed to take in the roughly 230 passengers, the Maltese prime minister said Wednesday.

The Lifeline had been refused entry by the governments of Italy and Malta, and its predominately Sub-Saharan passengers, who were rescued from flimsy boats trying to make their way across the Mediterranean Sea, were stuck on board amid worsening weather conditions that prompted the NGO to request permission to enter Maltese waters to take shelter. </s> A humanitarian ship that has had some 130 rescued migrants on board for almost a week will enter a Maltese port on Wednesday, ending a standoff with Italy which refused to let the ship dock.

CASTILLE, Malta: A humanitarian ship that has had some 130 rescued migrants on board for almost a week will enter a Maltese port on Wednesday, ending a standoff with Italy which refused to let the ship dock.

Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told reporters seven European Union countries offered to share the burden of the migrants with Malta. The Lifeline ship, operated by German charity Mission Lifeline, is due to dock at around 1600 GMT.

"Lifeline will be granted permission to enter a Maltese port, where procedures for identification, ascertaining their asylum eligibility, and distribution to other member states will start immediately," Muscat said. </s> The captain of a German NGO's migrant rescue vessel was released on bail Monday after attending a court hearing over the ship's alleged irregular registration, according to one of Lifeline's defense lawyers.

Claus-Peter Reisch captained the Lifeline to Malta on June 27 with 234 migrants on board, after six days in limbo in the Mediterranean Sea owing to a political spat.

A court in Valetta has accused the captain of alleged irregularities regarding the rescue vessel's registration, setting bail at 10,000 euros ($11,600), lawyer Daniel Amato told EFE.

While released on bail, Reisch would not be allowed to leave the island, must present himself to authorities once a week and was ordered to sleep on the boat.

The Lifeline was grounded as a precaution in the meantime while the matter was addressed.

The court ordered a search of the ship and scheduled the next hearing for July 5 at 11:30 am.

After picking up the migrants in the Central Mediterranean, Lifeline was denied docking permission by Italy, but granted it by Malta after an agreement was reached with other European countries to resettle those who were rescued.

While the boat operates under a Dutch flag, the government of the Netherlands said last week the ship was not registered with the country.

The NGO's defense has presented documents showing the vessel was registered at a sailing club as a recreational vessel, which the prosecution said meant it could not be used to conduct rescue operations.

The prosecution has said the only charge pressed against the captain for the moment was the registration irregularity, though it has not ruled out further charges. </s> The German captain of a private ship that rescues migrants in the Mediterranean Sea pleaded innocent on Monday to charges that he entered Malta's waters illegally and without proper boat registration.

At an arraignment hearing in the island nation's capital, Valletta, Maltese prosecutors asked a magistrate to order the confiscation of the vessel Lifeline. The boat's crew picked up 234 migrants in waters off Libya last month.

The destination of the rescued passengers became the subject of a dispute among European nations. Malta last week gave the ship safe harbor, but only after Italy and seven other nations agreed to each take some of the migrants.

Several hundred thousand migrants have arrived in Italy after sea rescue in recent years, and its new government refused to let the Lifeline dock. Maltese officials also launched an investigation to determine if the ship's crew violated maritime laws.

"We did the right thing," Lifeline Captain Claus-Peter Reisch after the arraignment, where his bail was set at 10,000 euros ($11,600) and he was ordered to surrender his passport and to report to a police station weekly.

The 57-year-old German was charged with using the boat in Maltese waters without proper registration or license. That charge also incorporates the allegation of entering Maltese waters illegally.

Defense lawyer Cedric Mifsud told reporters this his client and Lifeline appeared to be a "scapegoat" for a wider squabbling by European Union countries over how to manage the flood of migrants to Europe's southern shores.

"What we hope is that this case is not a symptom of the current Mediterranean climate, where governments are closing the EU's borders and targeting rescue NGOs for doing the jobs that governments should be doing," Mifsud said.

As for Malta, he added: "we suspect the Maltese government is picking on the Lifeline incident to make a political statement at (the) Brussels level, that borders need to be closed and that Europe will not tolerate NGOs rescuing refugees out at sea."

Some members of Lifeline's crew turned up at the court wearing T-shirts bearing the word "Save Lives." A white sheet emblazoned with the phrase, "Rescue ships blocked 400 dead" was held outside the courthouse.

The phrase apparently referred to the many migrants who are believed to have drowned in recent days off Libya. Italy and its EU partners say the Libyan coast guard should carry out rescues in its search-and-rescue area. Private aid groups have contended lives were lost because their rescue boat ships either aren't at sea, due to legal woes, like that of the Lifeline, or because Italy's coast guard says those rescues are Libya's responsibility.

The Libyan coast guard itself, already given training and equipment from Italy, says it needs more aid to properly save lives.

Italy's interior minister, Matteo Salvini, deputy premier in the government, leads an anti-migrant party. Many in his base associate migrants with crime. He has vowed to let no more aid groups' rescue vessels dock in Italy. </s> PARIS (Reuters) - Malta appears ready to allow the rescue ship Lifeline, stuck in international waters in the Mediterranean sea with more than 230 migrants aboard, to enter one of its ports after Italy refused, a French government spokesman said on Tuesday.

The solution was broached in discussions on Monday between French President Emmanuel Macron and Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said.

“A European solution may be to have the ship dock in Malta. It is the solution that seems to be shaping up at the moment,” Griveaux told RTL radio without elaborating.

“France would then be ready to send a team there to study individual (asylum) requests,” he said.

The Lifeline is the second rescue ship in weeks to expose Europe’s deep divisions over how to share refugees and economic migrants.

Leaders of the European Union failed on Sunday to come up with a joint position to tackle migration and will try again at a summit at the end of this week.

Earlier this month, a ship carrying more than 600 migrants, the Aquarius, was stranded similarly before it was accepted by Spain. </s> PARIS: Malta appears ready to allow the rescue ship Lifeline, stuck in international waters in the Mediterranean sea with more than 230 migrants aboard, to enter one of its ports after Italy refused, a French government spokesman said on Tuesday (Jun 26).

The solution was broached in discussions on Monday between French President Emmanuel Macron and Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said.

"A European solution may be to have the ship dock in Malta. It is the solution that seems to be shaping up at the moment," Griveaux told RTL radio without elaborating.

"France would then be ready to send a team there to study individual (asylum) requests," he said.

The Lifeline is the second rescue ship in weeks to expose Europe's deep divisions over how to share refugees and economic migrants.

Leaders of the European Union failed on Sunday to come up with a joint position to tackle migration and will try again at a summit at the end of this week.

Earlier this month, a ship carrying more than 600 migrants, the Aquarius, was stranded similarly before it was accepted by Spain. </s> Rome, June 22 - The Italian port authority on Friday made a formal request for Malta to allow the NGO-run migrant-rescue ship Lifeline to dock at a port on the island, government sources said. The Dutch-flagged ship, run by German NGO Mission Lifeline, may be set to be at the centre of an international wrangle like that which involved another migrant-rescue vessel, the Aquarius, which ended up docking in Valencia last week after Italy and Malta refused it access to ports. Italian Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli on Thursday accused the Lifeline of "operating in Libyan waters outside all rules, outside international law" after it took on 224 asylum seekers. Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said the Lifeline should go to the Netherlands.
Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat says that migrant rescue ship MV Lifeline, stranded in international waters with over 200 rescued people on board for five days, has been granted permission to dock on the island and will do so later today. Muscat says that those on board will be split among Malta and seven other European Union nations.