'Political ping-pong'

Attempts to distribute refugees around the bloc's 28 member states have consistently failed, with the surge in migrants fueling anti-immigration, far-right political parties across Europe.

"We cannot continue the political ping-pong on who is finally responsible for shouldering the responsibility of migration or protecting external borders, because we all are," EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said on Tuesday in Strasbourg.

The new government in Rome, which includes the far-right League party, came to power pledging to stop the boats and carry out mass deportations that could see hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants expelled.

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, the League leader, said last week that he would not let Italy become "Europe's refugee camp".

Those 629 migrants, including 11 children and seven pregnant women, have been afloat in the central Mediterranean aboard the Aquarius rescue ship since Sunday, when both Italy and Malta refused to let them dock.

Spain unexpectedly offered on Monday to take in the group of mainly sub-Saharan Africans, who were picked up off the Libyan coast over the weekend. But the Aquarius is heavily overcrowded, making the four-day trip to Spain particularly perilous.

To resolve the problem, two Italian boats moved alongside the Aquarius on Tuesday to share out the migrants before heading west through what are forecast to be stormy seas.

The convoy set sail at around 9 pm, according to a spokeswoman for the Franco-German charity SOS Mediterranne which is operating the Aquarius.

It will take the Aquarius about 10 days to make the trip to Spain and back.

AFP-Reuters-Xinhua