Spain offered Monday to take in a ship stranded in the Mediterranean with 629 migrants aboard after Italy and Malta refused to let the vessel dock in their ports.
The ship Aquarius warned that fresh food and drink supplied by the Maltese navy on Monday would only last until Tuesday.
The migrants, including pregnant women and scores of children, were saved by the French charity SOS Mediterranee on Saturday.
Malta and the new populist government in Italy each refused to take the migrants in, accusing each other of failing to meet their obligations.
The refusal to accept the Aquarius in Italy was the first major anti-migrant move since far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini took office this month.
Salvini tweeted “VICTORY” after two days of confrontation with Malta over the migrants ended with Spain’s offer of help.
The new Spanish administration headed by Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez agreed to allow the Aquarius to dock in its eastern port of Valencia, insisting that it was an “obligation” to do so.
But Spain’s new foreign minister, Josep Borrell, said the gesture was also intended to underline the need for solidarity from the entire bloc.
“Italy has received an enormous influx of migrants and so far other European countries haven’t shown much solidarity,” Borrell told a news briefing in Madrid.
There was, he said, a “need for Europeans… to face up, in a united and coordinated manner, to a problem that is a problem for all, and not just for Greece one year and for Italy the next”.
