Vessel barred from entering Italy or Malta since picking up dozens of refugees on 3 April

Concerns are rising for the wellbeing of 64 people stranded on a migrant rescue vessel in the Mediterranean for a week because neither Italy nor Malta will allow the boat to dock.

The migrants and refugees were rescued from a dinghy off Libya on 3 April by a rescue boat operated by the German NGO Sea-Eye and named Alan Kurdi after the Syrian boy who drowned in 2015.

Italy’s far-right deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, has repeatedly declared Italian waters closed to NGO rescue vessels. Several boats have previously been left stranded at sea due to Salvini’s hardline approach, which is partly designed to force other parts of Europe to take in more asylum seekers.

Sea-Eye’s head of mission, Jan Ribbeck, said food and drinking water stocks had nearly run out before a delivery by another NGO rescue ship on Tuesday. According to Ribbeck, there were 80 people on board, including crew, but the ship was built to accommodate only 20. “Many are sleeping on the deck, exposed to the elements and without a change of clothes when they get wet,” he said.

A Sea-Eye spokeswoman said conditions on board were unsustainable and an approaching storm had put the refugees and migrants in even greater danger.

On Friday, a German interior ministry spokesperson said the country was prepared to take in some of those on board the Alan Kurdi. “We trust that a large number of [EU] member states will declare themselves ready to participate in the redistribution of the people on board,” the spokesperson said. “Germany too will again be prepared to take up its responsibility for some of these people within the framework of a European solution.”

The German government has asked the European commission to coordinate the handling of the Alan Kurdi to ensure the ship can arrive at a safe harbour.

Two children, aged one and six, and their mothers were given permission by Italy’s interior ministry to land in Lampedusa for medical reasons but the women refused to disembark without their husbands.

In a separate incident on Wednesday, the NGO Alarm Phone said it had been contacted by someone on board a dinghy carrying 20 people off Libya. The person told Alarm Phone that eight people were missing and the rest would die if the NGO didn’t come to save them.

On 27 March, the EU said it would stop its sea patrols in the Mediterranean, which have rescued thousands of people, after the Italian government threatened to veto the EU’s entire operation in the waters.

Operation Sophia, which has two vessels and five planes and helicopters, was set up in 2015 to prevent loss of life at sea in a year when 3,771 people died or went missing while attempting to reach Europe in rickety boats.

The suspension of sea patrols in central Mediterranean waters will remain in place until 30 September, although air patrols will be stepped up.

More than 8o people rescued off the Libyan coast in November and returned to the port of Misrata on a cargo ship refused to leave for more than a week and were eventually forced to disembark at gunpoint.