The government of Gibraltar has said it is to strip the migrant rescue vessel Aquarius of its Gibraltar registration.

The "notice of removal" was issued by the Gibraltar Maritime Administration on 6 August because the ship was registered as a "survey vessel" but was being used for search and rescue work.

The registration is due to be officially revoked on 20 August. At this point, registration will revert to Germany because the underlying owner is German.

The news emerged as Italy demanded Britain take in the 141 migrants on board the ship because of its Gibraltar flag registration.

The migrants were picked up in two separate rescues in the Mediterranean Sea by the Aquarius, a French-German rescue vessel, on Friday.


Image: Danilo Toninelli declared Italy would refuse to let the ship dock

Italy's transport minister Danilo Toninelli said as the boat flew under the flag of a British territory, the UK was responsible for the migrants.

The vessel is currently waiting in international waters, with the rescued migrants on board, half way between Italy and Malta for a country to grant them a port.

SOS Mediterranee, a French-German charity which lease and operate the Aquarius with Medicines Sans Frontiers, reacted angrily overnight at the Gibraltar government's decision.

In a hastily released statement, the charity said that the move "attests a deliberate will to stop the rescue activity of the Aquarius, one of the last civil and humanitarian rescue ships in the Mediterranean".

The charity said it had "satisfied, for the last two years, all regulatory requests arising from the competencies of the Gibraltar Flag State, and all technical controls regarding security and safety of the ship. No deficiencies were ever reported".

Image: The Aquarius migrant rescue ship remains half way between Italy and Malta

The statement continued: "While for the last two and half years, the Aquarius has conducted more than 200 search and rescue (SAR) operations, in complete transparency and regularly informing all competent authorities, the Gibraltar Maritime Authority is disguising a political manoeuvre behind an incoherent argument."

The charity claims that Gibraltar has been fully aware of the use of the Aquarius as a rescue ship pointing out that the Gibraltar Maritime Authority has itself registered the Aquarius as a search and rescue vessel with the International Maritime Organisation. They also insisted that there is no "technically founded" difference between a survey and a rescue vessel.

The announcement by Gibraltar only further complicates an already difficult situation involving the Aquarius which is at sea between Italy and Malta waiting for a country to allow it to disembark the 141 migrants it rescued on Friday.

The migrants, half of whom are minors and one-third are female, were rescued in two operations coordinated by the Libyan Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC).

According to SOS Mediterranee and Medicines Sans Frontiers, the first group of 25 migrants were found adrift in a small wooden boat with no engine on Friday morning. The rescuers said they had probably been at sea for up to 35 hours.

Image: Half of the migrants on board the Aquarius are minors

A few hours later a second group of 116 migrants were rescued - 67 of them were unaccompanied minors and most were from Eritrea and Somalia.

In a statement, SOS Mediterranee said: "In compliance with the International Maritme Law, the Aquarius requested the coordinating authority, the Libyan JRCC, to assign a place of safety for the disembarkation of the rescued people.

"The JRCC replied by explicitly instructing the Aquarius to request a place of safety. The next morning, therefore, the Aquarius began proceeding north to request a place of safety by a different rescue coordination centre."

Sky News has been sent maritime maps which show the precise location of the initial two rescues. It clearly shows that the closest ports are in Libya and Tunisia.

However, Tunisia has routinely refused to allow vessels to dock at its ports and rescue charities have consistently refused to take migrants back to Libya because of the conditions they are held in there.

Speaking to Sky News, Elizabeth Collett, director of the Migration Policy Institute said: "In theoretical terms there is the possibly that the country that flies the flag on the ship is responsible for whoever steps on board.

"In practical terms that would have huge implications for the nature of maritime search and rescue at large. So this is more political rhetoric than a practical suggestion."

This latest diplomatic standoff is a repeat of another incident involving the Aquarius in June when the Italians and Maltese again refused the vessel a port of disembarkation.

In that instance, Spain allowed the Aquarius could dock in Valencia.

This time, the government in Madrid has yet to make its intention clear despite authorities in Barcelona saying it was welcome there.

Aquarius migrants arrive in port of Valencia

Responding to this latest standoff, Barcelona's deputy mayor Laia Ortiz, said that Europe must be "responsible" and be committed to helping the migrants because they "are fleeing and need to be rescued".

"Barcelona will always be committed to life," the deputy mayor insisted, reiterating the offer of Barcelona as a port for the Aquarius.

The situation this time may have been complicated because the Aquarius briefly entered Maltese waters to help with the rescue of a third group of 11 migrants who were spotted in a small fibreglass boat.

The Aquarius helped to stabilise the vessel, distributing life jackets, food and water before the Italian Coast Guard rescued the 11 migrants.

The Aquarius's presence in Maltese waters allows other nations, like Italy, to claim that Malta should have offered its ports because they were the closest safe ports.