LONDON — A group of 49 migrants stranded at sea after being refused entry to any European port in late December, in a case seen as emblematic of the region’s increasingly hard-line approach to immigration, was finally allowed to land in Malta on Wednesday.

The asylum seekers, who had been sheltering aboard two private rescue boats, will be shared among nine member states of the European Union, the Maltese prime minister, Joseph Muscat, said in a statement. A further 224 people who had been brought to Malta by the Maltese Coast Guard will also be distributed across the nine nations.

The announcement brought to an end a 19-day wait for 32 of the stranded migrants, who were rescued from a faulty rubber dinghy off Libya on Dec. 22 by the Sea-Watch 3, a ship owned by the private German rescue organization Sea Watch. The 17 others were picked up a week later by another German group, Sea Eye.