The Maltese authorities gave fuel and a compass to migrants to help them reach Lampedusa, Italy’s Matteo Salvini claimed on Saturday, once again upping the ante in the Mediterranean migration saga.
The leader of the right wing Lega movement in Italy said there are too many clues which led him to believe a hostile attitude coming from Malta, another EU state.
According to Mr Salvini’s ministry, late on Wednesday the Italian authorities alerted their Maltese counterparts about a boat with 13 migrants in Maltese search and rescue waters, which had ran out of fuel. The boat eventually landed in Lampedusa on Friday with those on board saying they were helped at sea by people with uniforms “like those of the [Maltese] coastguard”.

According to reports, the migrants were approached by a dinghy, given water, two tanks of fuel, life jackets and a compass, and escorted for about an hour towards Italy.
It is not the first time that the leader of Italy’s far-right League party has accused Malta of shirking its responsibilities when it comes to handling the constant flow of migrants from North Africa.
“Some EU member states don’t care about migrants and dump them on us, while Brussels is…