MILAN (AP) — The Latest on the influx of migrants in Europe (all times local):
3:45 p.m.
Police say a van carrying migrants has overturned in northwestern Croatia injuring twelve people.
Police said the accident happened early Friday when the Hungarian driver of the van lost control of the vehicle and hit the side of the road.
The statement said the injured migrants have been taken to a nearby hospital. The van driver is suspected of smuggling the migrants, who appeared to be from Pakistan.
Police also say that late on Thursday they stopped a van with 14 migrants from Afghanistan near the border with Slovenia.
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12:50 p.m.
Italy’s populist, anti-migrant interior minister said Friday that Malta should allow a Dutch-flagged rescue ship carrying hundreds of migrants rescued from rubber dinghies off the Libyan coast to make port there because the ship is now in Maltese waters.
“We ask humanly and politically that Malta finally opens one of its ports and lets these desperate people disembark,” and then seize the ship, Mateo Salvini said.
Malta responded that it would “act according to the laws and applicable conventions,” without further explanation. International law states that Malta must respond if they are the nearest safe port at rescue or if requested by the ship’s captain.
Salvini is making good on an election promise to go after rescue ships run by aid groups, which he has likened to taxi services that help the migrant smugglers.
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