Mediterranean rescue charities disagree on whether to work during pandemic

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Two big migrant rescue charities operating in the Mediterranean have fallen out over whether to continue search and rescue missions during the pandemic.

Doctors Without Borders fell out with SOS Mediteranee after it put its rescue ship Ocean Viking into port in Marseille.

It's also condemned Germany, Italy and Malta for closing their ports to rescued people in response to the pandemic.

But SOS Mediteranee says it will only work under maritime law and under safe conditions. And that means temporarily not carrying out operations, it says.

Meanwhile, 146 rescued migrants onboard the German rescue ship Alan Kurdi have been transferred onto a larger ship after a two-week ordeal at sea.

The Italian Red Cross are now arranging for them to be placed in quarantine for two weeks on the ferry in the Sicilian port of Palermo.

What happens to them after that is not yet known.