The coastguard said a patrol boat dispatched from the southern Italian island of Lampedusa had taken on board 49 of "those considered most vulnerable" among the 219 migrants picked up by the ship since Thursday off the coast of Libya.
Named after a French feminist anarchist, the Louise Michel started operating last week. Despite the help from Italy, it has still not found a safe port for the rest of the mainly African migrants on board.
The 49 people who were transferred off the ship include 32 women and 13 children, the Italian coastguard said."Helping these people is a question of life or death," it said, condemning the inertia of the Italian and Maltese coastguards.Two United Nations agencies called for the "urgent disembarkation" of the Louise Michel and two other ships carrying a total of more than 400 migrants in the Mediterranean.Some 200 are on the Sea Watch 4, a German charity ship, while 27 have been on board the commercial tanker Maersk Etienne since their rescue on August 5.The International Organisation for Migration and the UN High Commission for Refugees said in a joint statement they were "deeply concerned about the continued absence of dedicated EU-led search and rescue capacity in the Central Mediterranean.""The humanitarian imperative of saving lives should not be penalized or stigmatized, especially in the absence of dedicated state-led efforts," they said.Italy is the destination of most migrants who have departed from Libya across the Mediterranean in recent years. The influx has created political tensions in Rome and fueled the success of Matteo Salvini's right-wing League party.